After You Killed Our Daughter, I'll Never Come Back

My eyes flew open. A warm hand was pressed firmly over mine.

Julian sat at the edge of the hospital bed, brows drawn tight, holding down the spot where the IV needle pierced my skin.

I yanked my hand back as if I'd been burned.

Blood beaded instantly at the puncture site, the skin flushing red and swollen.

"Gertrude, no matter how much you hate me, you can't treat your own body like it doesn't matter."

"The doctor said every one of your markers is below normal. You're overworked and malnourished."

He seized my hand again, and his gaze caught on the scar across my wrist. Something raw flickered behind his eyes.

"It's been four years. You should have forgotten me by now. Moved on with your life."

I let out a bitter laugh. The bridge of my nose stung, and tears spun wildly behind my eyes, threatening to fall.

Who doesn't want to move on?

But the moment he died, every part of my soul left with him. What remained was just a shell, no different from a walking corpse.

The only thing that kept me breathing was my daughter.

I found out she existed the same day I tried to kill myself.

A neighbor coming home from a late shift noticed my door was open, walked in, and found me barely alive, clutching Julian's clothes to my chest.

After they brought me back, the doctors told me I was three months pregnant.

Everyone told me to let go. Julian was gone. The baby would be nothing but a burden I'd carry for the rest of my life. They urged me to end the pregnancy while I still could.

But I refused.

He was gone. That child was the only proof that what we had was real.

The only tie he still had to this world.

I underestimated how cruel life could be.

Before she was even six months old, Jeanette Harding was diagnosed with a congenital heart defect.

So for four years, I never stopped. Not for a single moment.

Every time I felt like I couldn't go on, I'd pull up my old messages with Julian, reading those tender words over and over.

Foolishly telling myself that if he were really here, he would never let me suffer like this.

What I never imagined was that when I finally saw him again, he'd be healthy, wealthy, thriving, with a doting wife in his arms and an unborn child on the way.

While my daughter was trapped in a body racked with pain, waiting day after day for a father's love that would never come.

How ironic. How laughable.

My heart felt like it had been ripped open, raw and bleeding, the pain radiating through every limb, every bone.

Julian watched me in silence. Then he exhaled, long and heavy, his voice thick with guilty resignation.

"Gertrude, I know I failed you."

"Whatever you want, name it. If it's in my power, I'll make it happen."

"I want you to divorce her."

I lifted my eyes and looked straight into his.

"Give me back what you owe me. All of it."

"Can you do that?"

His hand went rigid around mine. When he looked at me, there was something pleading in his gaze.

"Gertrude, Grace and I are already married."

"She's fragile. She's not strong like you. If I leave her, she and the baby could both be in danger."

"Gertrude, you know how hard it is for a child to grow up without a father."

Those words sliced into me like a blade, and tears splashed onto the back of my hand.

How could I not know?

I was raised by a single mother myself.

I knew exactly how many cold stares, how much hardship a child endured without a father's protection.

I sniffed hard, my voice breaking.

"I know. That's why I—"

But before I could finish, Julian cut me off, his expression turning cold.

His tone dropped to ice, and his eyes filled with heavy disappointment and blame.