The Crematorium Call

As the flatline tone filled the hospital room, I stared at my daughter's face.

I closed her eyes for her.

Even at the end, she had been watching the doorway, as if she were still waiting.

He never came.

With trembling hands, I gently closed Lily's eyes.

"You don't have to wait anymore, sweetheart," I whispered, my voice breaking. "You don't have to wait for anyone ever again."

I held her small, still form against my chest, rocking her as I had when she was a baby. "You'll never hurt again, my angel. No more needles. No more pain. No more disappointment."

The nurses gave me time alone with her. I sat in that sterile room for hours, memorizing every detail of her face.

The way her dark eyelashes rested against her cheeks. The small freckle on her nose that she had inherited from me. The peaceful expression that made her look like she was simply sleeping.

Two days later, I stood in the crematorium, clutching the papers that would reduce my daughter's body to ash.

The building was cold and institutional, filled with the quiet efficiency of death.

I didn't cry. Not here. Not yet.

Maybe it was because I knew Lily was finally free.

Free from a father who saw her as a mistake.

Free from the pain that had consumed her small body.

Maybe in whatever came next, she would have the loving family she had always deserved.

A family that didn't include Damien Blackwood.

"Ma'am?" The crematorium worker approached me gently. He was a kind-faced older man named Mr. Davis. "Do you need us to notify the child's father? It's standard procedure, but we require consent from both parents for the final arrangements."

I stared at the papers in my hands. Lily's name printed in stark black letters. Her birth date. And now, her death date.

"I can try calling him," I said quietly.

I dialed Damien's number with shaking fingers. It rang once, twice, three times, then went to voicemail. His cold, professional voice asked callers to leave a message.

I hung up without speaking.

"He's not answering," I told Mr. Davis.

The man's expression softened with sympathy. "Would you like me to try? Sometimes a call is taken more seriously when it comes from an official source."

I nodded, unable to speak.

Mr. Davis dialed the number from his desk phone, putting it on speaker.

This time, Damien answered on the second ring.

"Hello?" His voice was sharp, impatient.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Blackwood. This is Mr. Davis from Peaceful Rest Crematorium. I'm calling regarding your daughter, Lily Blackwood."

"What about her?"

"Sir, I'm very sorry to inform you that your daughter has passed away. We need you to come in to finalize the cremation arrangements with your wife."

The silence on the other end stretched for so long I wondered if the call had been disconnected.

Then Damien's voice exploded through the speaker, filled with rage.

"What kind of sick joke is this? Elara, I know you're behind this!"

Mr. Davis looked startled by the outburst, but he continued professionally. "Sir, this is not a joke. Your daughter's body is here at our facility…"

"Stop this insane charade right now!" Damien's voice crackled with venom. "Lily was rude to a guest yesterday, a direct result of her mother's parenting. If Elara is incapable of teaching her basic manners, I'll send her to my grandmother. The Matriarch will teach her some damn respect."

The line went dead.

Mr. Davis stared at the phone in shock, then looked at me with profound pity.

"I'm so sorry, Mrs. Blackwood. In thirty years of doing this job, I've never..."

He trailed off, but I could see the disbelief in his eyes.

From the hallway, I heard the whispered voices of other staff members. They had overheard the conversation.

"Can you believe that? His own daughter is dead and he thinks it's a prank."

"I've seen a lot of heartbroken parents come through here. But I've never seen anything like this. That poor woman."

"What kind of father doesn't even believe his child could die? The man has no heart."

"She's handling this all by herself. A man like that isn't a man at all."

Their sympathy was salt in the wound. These strangers, in a few whispered sentences, had shown more compassion than Lily's own father ever had.

"Would you like to proceed with the cremation, Mrs. Blackwood?" Mr. Davis asked gently.

I nodded, not trusting my voice.

Two hours later, I walked out of that building, clutching a small wooden box that contained the ashes of the daughter I had loved more than life itself.

Lily had been reduced to ash because her father couldn't even be bothered to believe she was gone.

The drive home was a blur. I carried the urn directly to Lily's bedroom. The room with pink wallpaper and Disney princess decorations that would never see their owner again.

I placed the urn on her dresser, next to her collection of stuffed animals.

Next to the photo of us at her last birthday party. She had been so happy that day, wearing her favorite dress and giggling as she blew out her candles.

That's when I finally broke.

I collapsed onto her tiny bed, surrounded by her toys and her clothes and her scent that still lingered on her pillow. The sobs that tore from my chest were raw and primitive, the sound of a mother's heart being ripped apart.

"I'm sorry," I whispered to the empty room. "I'm so sorry I couldn't protect you. I'm sorry I couldn't make him love you the way you deserved."

I cried until I had no tears left, until my body was empty and hollow and numb.

The next morning, I heard Damien's car in the driveway. He had finally come home.

I was sitting in the living room, staring at nothing, when he walked through the front door. He looked refreshed and well-rested.

He wore a different shirt, wrinkled from a night spent in another woman's bed.

He had spent the night at her place while his daughter died alone.

"Good morning," he said casually, as if nothing had happened. "Where's Lily? I want to apologize for being so hard on her yesterday."

I looked up at him. And he stopped short when he saw my face. My eyes were swollen and red from crying. My skin was pale and blotchy. I looked like exactly what I was. A mother who had spent the night grieving her dead child.

"Elara? What's wrong? You look terrible."

I stared at this man I had once loved. This man who had fathered my child but never bothered to be her father. This man who had chosen his mistress over his dying daughter.

"Where's Lily?" he asked again, a flicker of genuine alarm finally breaking through his arrogance.

Where's Lily.

Such a simple question. Such an impossible answer.

I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came out. How do you tell a man that his daughter is dead? How do you explain that while he was making love to another woman, his child was taking her last breath?

How do you make him understand that his little girl died believing she was unloved and unwanted?

"Elara, you're scaring me. Where is our daughter?"

Our daughter. As if she had ever been his daughter. As if he had ever claimed her as anything more than an obligation.

I stood up slowly. My legs were unsteady after hours of sitting in the same position.

"She's gone, Damien," I said, my voice barely a whisper.

"Gone? What do you mean gone? Did you take her somewhere?"

He still didn't understand.

Even now, even seeing my devastation, he couldn't fathom the truth.

"She's dead."

The words hung in the air between us. A verdict and a sentence all in one.

Damien's face went through a series of expressions. Confusion, disbelief, and then anger.

"Stop it," he said sharply. "This isn't funny anymore, Elara. Yesterday's phone call was bad enough, but this is going too far."

"I'm not joking."

"Yes, you are! Lily was fine yesterday morning. She was playing with her dolls. Children don't just die!"

But they do, I thought. Sometimes they die while their father is in bed with his mistress. Sometimes they die believing they are mistakes that ruined their parents' lives.

Sometimes they die waiting for a love that never comes.

"Where is she?" Damien demanded, his voice rising. "What have you done with our daughter?"