Chapter 3 - The Empty Nest
I woke up twenty-four hours later in a private room at the city hospital. The silence of the room was heavy, but it was a good silence. It was clean. It was safe.
In the two plastic bassinets beside my bed lay my two sons: Noah and Elijah. They were small, fierce, and perfect.
The door creaked open. My heart stopped. I expected Blake. I expected the excuses. I expected him to walk in with that arrogant, "I'm so sorry, babe, you know how Mom gets" look.
Instead, my own mother walked in, her face etched with a fury that matched the fire inside my own heart. She had flown in the moment Mrs. Gable had called her.
“He’s outside,” she said, her voice trembling with restraint. “He’s been out there for three hours. He says he wants to ‘explain.’”
I looked at my sons. I looked at the fragile, beautiful life they were already living, and I thought of the floor of my kitchen. I thought of the locked door. I thought of the choice he had made.
“Bring him in,” I said, my voice cold as ice.
Blake walked in. He looked disheveled, his clothes wrinkled from the mall, his hair a mess. He started to open his mouth, his eyes welling with crocodile tears. “Honey, I didn’t know. Mom said it was just Braxton Hicks. She said you were—"
I didn't let him finish. I didn't scream. I didn't cry. I simply held up my hand.
“You left me on the floor, Blake,” I said, my tone so hollow it sounded like it came from someone else. “You left your children’s lives in the hands of a woman who cared more about a handbag than her own grandchildren. You made your choice.”
“It was a mistake!” he pleaded, taking a step forward.
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“No,” I said, looking him directly in the eye. “A mistake is forgetting to buy milk. A mistake is arriving late to a party. Leaving your wife in high-risk labor while you go shopping is a character assessment. And you failed.”
I reached into the drawer beside my bed and pulled out the divorce papers my mother had already arranged to have printed. “I don't want your explanation. I want your absence.”
