Page 191 of Poison Vows

“Teddy’s connection in the Easton Family wasn’t through Daphne. He already had one and they planned together to kill her!” Beverly calls after me as I leave. “You were there that night when your grandfather saved Daphne, then the accident happened.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“Teddy might be dead, but his contacts now know that the witness to those crimes is you. They will come for you!” Beverly cries. “Get out of here and hide, Ivy! These people are no good for you. As for me, I don’t mind being a prisoner, so long as you’re safe. Leave this place!”

I quickly leave, my mind buzzing with everything my mother just said. Ty drives the cart back to the residence.

Now, in retrospect and with all this information, I see how messed up my life became from just one choice my mother made.

Mothers are crucial to a child’s emotional, psychological, and cognitive development.

A father’s active and involved constant presence shapes the child’s confidence, reliance, and identity.

I’ve grown up with skewed perspectives on relationships, on love, on life, on my own self-worth, even concerning the goodness of God!

I developed this irrational, pathetic need to hang on to things and people that don’t want me, with an indescribable fear that they’d abandon me too.

So is it any wonder that I ignored Emmett’s words, and instead magnified his actions toward me?

I intentionally mistook his kindness, generosity, and fierce protection toward his friends as a sign that he did care for me too and that one day, he would love me too?

But that will never happen.

“Ty?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I ignore that moniker and focus on my train of thought.

“Can you tell me about Emmett’s health over the years?”

At this, Ty glances at me curiously. “Ma’am?”

“I mean, I know he just had a heart transplant surgery. How many of those has he had?”

“Transplants? Only three times. The first was when he was one year old, it lasted for almost ten years until a rapid and sudden regression. Then another when he was ten years old that, well, didn’t last a fortnight. Then this most recent one,” Ty explains silently. “But between each one, he has had multiple surgeries, temporary pacemakers, valvular repairs, aortic stenosis corrections, three years ago, he got a ventricular assist device.”

I feel my own heart pause in my chest.

“He got a VAD?”

I’ve studied so much about heart conditions, different types of surgeries… how can I not know about VADs?

Ty is silent for a while, a heaviness I can’t describe falling between us in the cart. “The young master has fallen into regression and heart failure more times than I can count. The most recent time, the VAD was replaced three times over the past three years. In fact, the time he came back from that Christmas trip, we had to immediately rush him into surgery. He was bedridden for two months.”

Oh God.

He had just rejected me at that Christmas vacation. I never once looked for him, nor did I care what he was up to.

“With the last VAD replacement, the doctor said the young master didn’t have long anymore,” Ty says silently. “It was a miracle when the doctors that have been researching his case called with the news a few weeks ago.”

“Was this surgery not a possibility before?” I ask, my mind racing. “Why didn’t he have the heart transplant before?”

“Young miss?—”

“Please just answer the question, Ty. Why didn’t he get it done before, maybe after that last fail?”

Ty hesitates before he answers, confirming what I already knew.

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