Page 65 of Toxic Salvation
“You don’t understand.” I grip her hand tighter, as if I can keep her tethered to this world through touch alone. “I’m a doctor. My job is to save lives. But somehow, I can never help the people I love most. When you told me about the cancer, I knew the statistics. I knew what a death sentence looked like. But I also knew I couldn’t just give up without a fight.”
“This isn’t about you, though, honey.”
She delivers the blow gently, the way she’s always delivered difficult truths. But it still cuts deep. I release her hand and step back from the bed.
“You’re my mother,” I insist. “Everything about you is about me.”
“You’re thirty-one years old, Vesper. You don’t need me anymore.” Her sunken eyes seem enormous in her gaunt face. “I’ve told you before: It’s time for me to join your father. You took an opportunity from someone who actually wants tolive, someone who deserves another chance. Not to mention that you’ve compromised a clinical trial that could help save countless other patients.”
I swipe angrily at the tears streaming down my cheeks. “You think I was wrong to fight for you?”
“I think you risked everything unnecessarily,” Mom says sadly. “Your career, your reputation, your medical license. I think you acted without considering the consequences, and now, you’re in over your head. I think you’re your father’s daughter, and you’re going to end up regretting this the same way Thomas did.”
My breath catches in my throat. “What?”
“Your father took liberties at work, too,” she says vaguely. “He did things he shouldn’t have done.”
“You knew.” The realization is a slap in the face. “Oh, God. You knew what he was doing.”
“Wait.” Mom’s face goes pale and slack. “What do you think he was doing?”
But I can’t explain. Not when I need answers myself. I shake my head, backing away from her bed, allowing myself to feel real anger toward her for the first time since her diagnosis.
“He was a fraud!” I scream. “A liar and a murderer! He was stealing organs from his patients—people who trusted him, people who requested him specifically for their surgeries! It’s bad enough that he did what he did, but knowing that you knew about it and did nothing…”
My legs start to give out. I reach for the bed frame but my hands are shaking too badly to find purchase. Just as I’m about to hit the floor, strong hands catch me.
Kovan’s hands. Hands that have dragged me into nightmares. Hands that have held methroughnightmares.
“I’ve got you,” he murmurs against my ear. “I’ve got you.”
I collapse against him, sobs ripping from my chest with such violence that my ribs ache. Mom struggles to sit up, her own cheeks wet with tears.
“Honey, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know that you knew…”
“I was hopingyoudidn’t know,” I say through my tears. “I thought if you were in the dark about his crimes, that would justify why you stayed with him all those years. It would explain why you still loved him.”
“Oh, sweetheart.” Mom’s voice breaks. “You don’t just stop loving someone because they do terrible things. He was the love of my life, my soulmate. I didn’t approve of what he was doing. I begged him to stop, but?—”
“Hedidn’tstop!”
“He couldn’t stop, Vesper.” She’s crying harder now, her frail body shaking with the force of it. “He wanted to quit in the end. He tried to make a clean break?—”
“There’s nothing clean about murdering hundreds of innocent people!” I cry out. “There’s no coming back from that!”
“I know,” she gasps. “I know.”
Kovan’s arms tighten around me, supporting most of my weight. “Why didn’t he just stop?” I demand. “Why didn’t he walk away?”
“He’d gotten involved with dangerous people, Vesper. You don’t just quit when you’re dealing with them.”
“Your mother’s right,” interjects Kovan. “He couldn’t have stopped. My father would never have allowed it.”
I tear myself out of his embrace.
What am I doing? Seeking comfort from a man who’s just as morally compromised as my father was? A man who represents everything I should be running from?
Is this why I fell for Kovan in the first place? Because some sick part of me was drawn to the familiar pattern of loving a criminal? Was I trying to rewrite my parents’ story, to somehow fix what my father broke?
