Chapter 2

The dam finally broke after the phone call. I leaned against the cold hospital wall and sobbed, not quiet tears, but ugly, heaving gasps of air. I cried for Lily. I cried for the years I had wasted, for the love I had poured into a bottomless pit.

The next few days were a blur of mechanical actions. I arranged Lily' s funeral. I picked out a small white casket, a soft pink dress. I did it all alone.

Six days passed. Mark was out of the ICU, recovering in a regular room, but he never called. He never asked about Lily. He hadn' t even acknowledged her death. It was as if she, and our five years together, had never existed.

I sat at our dining room table, the house deafeningly quiet, and printed out the divorce papers. As the printer whirred, a notification pinged on my phone. A message from an unknown number. It was a video. From Emily.

My finger trembled as I pressed play.

The video showed Mark, pale and bruised in his hospital bed. "Emily, I hate you," he said, his voice raspy. "You left me when I had nothing." But his eyes told a different story. They were filled with a deep, aching pain, a longing that I had never seen him show for me.

Emily, looking fragile and beautiful, started to cry. She ran from the room onto what looked like a hospital balcony. Then, she climbed over the railing and jumped into a lake below. The camera shook. Mark, despite his IV lines and bandages, ripped them away and scrambled out of bed. He ran to the balcony and, without hesitation, dove in after her.

The next shot was on the shore. Mark was holding a soaked, coughing Emily in his arms.

"I have leukemia," she sobbed into his chest. "I only have three months to live. I left you all those years ago because I didn't want you to suffer with me."

Mark held her tighter. "I never loved Sarah," he confessed, his voice breaking. "I never even loved our child. Every extra shift, every risk I took... it was just to hear your voice, Emily. Just to hear you."

My phone screen blurred. Tears dripped onto the divorce papers, smudging the ink.

The next morning, Mark came home. He was still in his firefighter's uniform from the day of the collapse, dirty and rumpled. He didn't look at me.

"What was wrong with Lily?" he asked, his voice cold, devoid of any emotion. "Was it some sickness she got from you?" Before I could even process the cruelty of his words, he blamed me. "You were never careful enough."

His phone rang. He answered it, his face instantly shifting to panic. "Emily? What's wrong? I'm on my way." He rushed out the door without a backward glance.

Later that day, I saw her social media. A new post from Emily Davis. A picture of her dog, with a caption: "Poor baby has diarrhea, had to rush him to the vet. Thankfully, someone was here to help." In the background, blurred but unmistakable, was Mark. His wedding ring was off. He was kneeling, gently tending to her dog.

I collapsed onto the floor of Lily' s empty room, clutching her favorite stuffed bear. My devotion, my sixteen years of love, had done nothing but ensure my daughter was born into a fatherless life and died without him ever truly knowing her.