Chapter 8
Life settled into a new normal.
Ryan flew in once a month.
Three days.
Two nights.
He was a good dad when he was here.
But he was always tired.
Always on Pacific time.
Always checking his phone for Lily updates.
William started walking at ten months.
Ryan missed it.
He was at Lily’s first birthday party in Portland.
I sent him a video.
He called me crying.
Said he wished he could have been there.
I told him I knew.
But what else was there to say?
Vanessa and I talked every few weeks.
Mostly about the kids.
We sent pictures.
Videos.
Updates on milestones.
Lily walked two weeks after William.
Vanessa sent me a video.
I sent one back of William doing the same.
It was strange.
We were building a relationship.
Not friendship.
Not exactly.
But something like it.
Bound by the man who’d betrayed us both.
Bound by our children.
Then, when William was eighteen months old, the bomb dropped.
I was at work—waitressing nights, going to school online during the day—when my phone rang.
Vanessa.
Screaming.
“Emily! You need to get to the hospital. Ryan’s in the ER. He collapsed at the airport. They think… they think it’s his heart.”
I dropped the tray I was holding.
Glasses shattered everywhere.
“I’m on my way.”
I called Margaret.
She met me at the hospital.
Vanessa was already there.
Pacing.
Lily was with her parents in the waiting room.
“What happened?” I asked.
“He flew in last night for William’s birthday. Said he felt fine. Then this morning at the airport… he just collapsed. Security found him. Rushed him here.”
A doctor came out.
We both ran to him.
“Family of Ryan Mitchell?”
“We’re both the mothers of his children,” I said. “What’s happening?”
The doctor looked at his chart.
“Mr. Mitchell suffered a massive cardiac arrest. His heart stopped for almost ten minutes before they got it going again. We’ve induced a coma to reduce swelling on the brain. The next seventy-two hours will tell us if there’s permanent damage.”
“Cardiac arrest?” Vanessa said. “He’s only twenty-eight. How is that possible?”
“We’re running tests. But based on his history—the car accident, the internal injuries—there could be scar tissue on his heart. We’ll know more soon.”
He walked away.
Margaret sat down hard.
“Oh my God. Oh my God.”
Vanessa was hyperventilating.
I grabbed her hand.
“Breathe. Just breathe.”
She looked at me.
Terror in her eyes.
“If he dies… what do we do? The kids… they’re so little.”
I squeezed her hand.
“We do what we’ve been doing. We raise them. Together. Like we promised.”
The next three days were the longest of my life.
We took turns sitting with Ryan.
Holding his hand.
Talking to him.
The doctors said comatose patients can sometimes hear.
So we talked.
About William.
About Lily.
About the future.
About all the things he’d miss if he didn’t wake up.
On the third day, the neurologist came in.
We were all there.
Me.
Vanessa.
Margaret.
Ryan’s dad.
Vanessa’s parents.
The whole messed-up family.
“We ran the brain scans,” the doctor said. “There’s activity. Good activity. The swelling is going down. We’re going to try to wake him up tomorrow.”
Nobody slept that night.
We camped out in the waiting room.
Ate terrible hospital food.
Drank bad coffee.
Waited.
At nine the next morning, they brought us in.
The doctor started reducing the sedation.
“Talk to him,” she said. “Let him know you’re here.”
We surrounded the bed.
Margaret took his right hand.
I took his left.
Vanessa stood at the foot of the bed.
Holding both kids.
William was two now.
Old enough to know something was wrong.
Lily was eighteen months.
Clutched her stuffed rabbit.
“Ryan,” Margaret said. “It’s Mom. We’re all here. The kids are here. You need to wake up now, baby. Come back to us.”
We waited.
Nothing.
“Daddy?” William said. He reached for Ryan’s face.
“Ryan,” I said. “William’s here. He brought you a picture he drew. See? It’s a dinosaur. You promised you’d take him to the zoo this weekend. You can’t break that promise.”
Still nothing.
Vanessa stepped forward.
Held Lily up so she could see.
“Lily’s here too, Ryan. She learned a new word yesterday. Wanna hear it?”
She turned to her daughter.
“Lily, say ‘Daddy.’”
The little girl looked at the man in the bed.
“Dada?”
And then…
Ryan’s eyelashes fluttered.
Just once.
Then again.
His eyes opened.
Blurry.
Confused.
But open.
He looked around the room.
At his mom.
At me.
At Vanessa.
And then his eyes landed on the two babies.
William.
Lily.
His children.
He tried to speak.
Nothing came out.
“Shhh,” the nurse said. “Don’t try to talk yet. You’re intubated. Just rest. You’re going to be okay.”
Ryan closed his eyes again.
May you like
But this time, there was a small smile on his face.
He was back.
