Page 80 of Lillian

I nod and go in to wrap my arms around his waist again. With my forehead leaned against his chest, I’m brave enough to admit to him, “I just feel like I need to be alone. To think. To grieve.”

I feel his chest expand as he takes a big breath in, and I pull back to look at him again. “But I’ll call you, okay?”

He leans down, lips touching mine in a sweet and brief goodbye. “Okay. I love you.”

I’ll never get tired of hearing those three words.

“You too.”

A few hours later, I’m sitting in the chair beside Grace’s hospital bed. Kim was here when I showed up, Nicky and Jim having gone home after visiting all day so Jim could get their son in bed at a reasonable time.

On the drive back, Kim had called to ask how the hearing went, so she was already aware of the state I’d be in. That didn’t stop me from crying the whole drive to the hospital. My eyes are red and swollen from it. Kim took one look at me and dissolved into a fit of tears herself. Like she hadn’t believed me over the phone, but seeing the heartache all over my face made it real for her.

After a long, breath-stealing hug and promises to be there if I need anything, she left, too.

The doctors and nurses don’t seem to have been made aware of the custodial change yet, thank God. That’s the only reason I’m still here after visiting hours, I think.

As if my thoughts have summoned her though, Talia strolls into the hospital room, and it kills me that she can now. Dressedin a comfortable pair of leggings and an ill-fitting sweatshirt. She wenthomeand changed—did who knows what else before coming to visit the daughter she just got custody of.

Resentment burns bright in me.

There’s a part of me, a pessimistic, hateful part, that believes she doesn’t even want kids. Let alone Grace.

What she wants is to appear as if she’s a good mother. Someone who has her life together. Who isn’t a drug-addicted narcissist.

Just as she sees me sitting by the bed, holding Grace’s hand as she sleeps, she stops dead in her tracks. “What are you doing here?” she huffs out, glaring daggers at me.

“Visiting my daughter,” I reply absently, not even looking at her as I say it. My eyes don’t leave Grace’s. Something tells me I’m about to say goodbye, and this will be the last time I get to see her. A weight settles heavily in my gut, rooting me to the spot.

“Mydaughter. Or did you forget already?” Nasty, awful woman.

“As if I’ll ever forget,” I mutter under my breath as I observe the peacefulness in Grace’s face. So unaware of what happened today. Of what is happening right now.

To be a kid again. To have the worst part of your day be losing your favorite stuffy.

I don’t hear Talia leave, but I do hear her come back, and based on the multiple sets of footsteps, someone has joined her.

“Visiting hours don’t apply to parents of children, ma’am.” The words finally pull my focus from my daughter to see a very young nurse glancing nervously between me and Talia as she says it. Probably because Talia looks like she is ready to throw a temper tantrum.

“She isn’t her parent.Iam her mom. She has to leave now!” Grace starts to stir at Talia’s raised voice. Not wanting to wakeher and not having the emotional or physical capacity for a fight right now, I stand slowly.

I lean over and plant a gentle kiss on Grace’s forehead before grabbing my things from the small table in the corner and walking toward the door. Relief is plastered all over the nurse’s face when she sees me leaving voluntarily and without any kind of commotion.

She hurries out of the room as I get closer, but then I stop a foot from Talia, who hasn’t moved out of the way of the door.

With a blank face, I give her a slow once-over.

She’s a mess. Even in the long sleeves and leggings, I can see the small tremors or chills wracking her body. There’s a small sheen of sweat on her upper lip, and her eyes are glassy. Her leg is bouncing slightly as she taps her foot against the floor. Not out of impatience for me to leave. But restlessness.

Withdrawal symptoms.

“Six months sober now, right?” My voice is sardonic as I raise a brow. “Quite the accomplishment.”

Her foot stops tapping, and she glowers at me. I huff out an ironic laugh, nothing about this at all funny.

My footsteps down the hospital hallways as I leave feel too loud, and it may just be my imagination, but I swear I feel every eye on me as I choke back tears.

The drive home is a short ten minutes. I sit in my car for another ten, dreading going into an empty, dark house. I won’t hear Grace’s infectious laugh or trip over the mess of toys she makes on the living room floor again.

---