Page 41 of This Is Love (The Light to My Darkness 3)

He said he had forgiven me. He said he loved me. He had said all the right things. But was any of it true? Were we really happy? I couldn’t remember anything about the day of the accident. But I did remember the note that I found. The one where it sounded like I tried to take my own life. James mentioned tonight that it was better if I didn’t remember that day. Was that why?

I stared at the stubble along his jaw line and the slope of his nose. His muscular shoulders and strong chest. I gently placed my hand on his left peck and ran my thumb along the scar. He said it was a minor cardiac episode. He brushed it off as no big deal. But he had surgery. Doctors had cut him open and done something to fix him. Or they had tried to fix him. James’ exhales sounded slightly labored. Like it was hard for him to breathe. He was more hurt than he was letting on. That much was clear. He was focused on me remembering and Liam healing and wasn’t thinking of himself. I felt fine. I was fine. Liam and James were the ones that needed my help, not the other way around.

All I knew for sure was that the man in front of me had my heart. He still felt like a stranger in some ways. But my memories were coming back. I knew that I loved him more than life itself. So I was going to figure out a way to alleviate any stress on him. And find a way to heal him and my baby. I leaned forward and placed a kiss against his scar. When I did, my eyes landed on a tattoo on the side of his ribcage. I had seen a glimpse of it before, but now the whole thing was visible in front of me.

It looked like the lines of an EKG. The ones you see on heart monitors. The beginning of it was flat and there was a date on it, and then the lines started up and down. It was the date when we first met in the coffee shop. His words came back to me in a rush. “My life began the day I met you,” I whispered out loud. But there were two more dates beneath the first one now. The date that Scarlett was born. And the date that Liam was born. Tears pricked the corners of my eyes. His heart beat for us. His family. Another memory rushed to the surface. One where James was hurt. Where he needed me just as much as he needed me now.

I woke up in the middle of the night freezing cold. I was hunched over in the chair beside James' bed, curled up in a ball. My eyes blinked in the darkness. The only light in the room was the medical equipment and the moon shining in through the windows.

I felt like I needed to throw up again. But I didn't have anything left to throw up. I was going to be a bad mother. Because I was selfish. Because I didn't know how to live without James. And every day that passed it seemed more likely that I'd need to.

The beeping was all I could hear in the room. The constant beeping. The beeping that was slowly driving me insane.

I wrapped my arms around myself and stood up. Despite how cold I felt, that wasn't why I had woken up. I was dreaming of our wedding night and what could have been. I let a small smile unfold on my lips. I pictured his hands on me, whispering that I was his wife. And he had let me slowly take off his tie and tuxedo jacket. I had unbuttoned his shirt and found his tattoo. His wedding present. The present I had completely forgotten about.

I glanced at the door. No one was going to come in right now. I needed to find it. I needed to see his gift to me. I slowly climbed onto his bed and lay down beside him.

He didn't smell like James. He smelled like the cheap shaving cream they had let me shave his face with and the soap I sponged him with. I ran my fingers down the scruff that was already forming on his face again. I wanted to kiss him, but there was a tube down his throat. Instead I gently ran my index finger across his bottom lip.

"Wake up, James. Please. You promised you wouldn't leave me. You told me this love was forever and always."

Nothing.

Every time he didn't respond, it killed me a little more inside. I slowly pulled down the front of his hospital gown, revealing tons of wires attached to his chest, monitoring his heartbeat. The tattoo wasn't on his chest. I kept pulling.

First I saw the bandage on his ribcage. Where they had fixed his punctured lung. I gently kissed the bandage. Then I saw the larger bandage on his stomach, the evidence of his ruptured spleen. I gently kissed the second bandage. But there was no tattoo.

I had the strangest feeling that maybe this wasn't James. Maybe this was some imposter, and James was somewhere happy and healthy. Somewhere away from me. Somewhere where no one would try to hurt him. But I knew that wasn't true. I knew every contour of his six pack. I knew the line of his happy trail.

I tried to swallow down the lump in my throat as I pulled the gown down his arms. There was the bandage on his arm. Stitches. I should have been counting my blessings, not my husband's fatal wounds. All three, so close to his heart that it broke mine even more.

Again, there was no tattoo. Where was it? I moved his arm slightly and looked along the inside of his bicep. And that's when I saw it. On the side of his chest, hidden by his arm. Because it was personal. It was only for me to see. Because he was mine and I was his.

"James." I ran my finger up and down the pulse of the tattoo. "You promised me forever. Getting married was supposed to be our new beginning. Not the end." I was choking on my words. "It's too soon! You have to wake up. I need you. I need you!"

I splayed my hand on his chest. "Wake up! You have to wake up! I need you. Baby, please, I need you." I pressed the side of my head against his chest. I needed to hear his heartbeat. I needed to know he was going to be okay. "Please, James. You promised. Please don't leave me like this. Please don't leave us."

And that's when I saw it. His index finger moved.

I blinked back my tears. “I’m going to fix everything, James. I’m going to take care of our family,” I whispered into the darkness. I slowly ducked out from between his arms and slid out of bed, being careful not to wake him. I looked over to see Scarlett sleeping peacefully. Every few breaths she made this adorable little snoring noise. I knew she hadn’t been sleeping well with everything going on. She only ever snored when she was truly exhausted. She would probably be out for several more hours.

I glanced at the clock. It was only 4 in the morning. There was plenty of time to do all the research that I needed. I tiptoed out of the bedroom and down the hall. Melissa and Josh were still sleeping on Scarlett’s bedroom floor. I glanced into Liam’s empty room. Always empty. I remembered taking Scarlett to the paint store to pick out the color. She and James spent the whole day painting this room, getting it ready for him. James had insisted that I couldn’t help, that I needed rest. But I watched the two of them laugh all day long, paint smeared on their clothes, hands, and faces. Mo

re paint ended up on them than it did on the walls. And I remembered thinking how lucky our baby was to join this family. A family full of love. And how soon I was going to get to bring him home. Tears pooled in the corners of my eyes. I’m going to fix this. I ignored the ache in my chest as I made my way down the stairs.

A memory flashed of a pool of blood at the bottom of the stairs and I froze mid-step. Rob had been hurt here. I remembered that feeling of despair seep over me. We had all been hurt here. It felt like everyone was always out to get us. So many people had tried to break us down. The University of New Castle. Isabella. James’ mother. Dr. Nelson. We’d had our fair share of heartache and suffering. Enough was enough. I had always been a believer in fate. But fate had a funny way of returning the favor. Pick on someone your own size, stupid fate!

I walked down the rest of the stairs, pushing aside the negative memories. I only wanted to remember the positive ones. There were more of those. I could picture the Christmas garland strung around the banister and the tree in the living room on Christmas morning. A surprise from James even though he always tried to convince me it was actually Santa. He did it every year. Turned our home into a Christmas wonderland. Everywhere I turned, more memories rushed back. The good outweighed the bad tenfold. And I was going to put the bad to bed permanently this time.

When I reached my office another memory flooded to the surface. When we first moved in and this room was empty, James and I had made love in front of the fireplace. He had been complaining about not hiring movers and I had wanted to lighten his spirits. I wasn’t sure who recommended the idea, but we had ended up playing hide-and-go-seek. He had scared me half to death when his arms wrapped around me in the darkness. A smile spread across my face. But he more than made up for the fright.

I collapsed in my desk chair and turned on my laptop. As soon as I opened up an internet browser I started typing away. I looked up poison and how important it was to pump your stomach. I wasn’t sure if Liam or mine had been pumped. I looked up preemies and how their chances at survival depended on how far away from their due dates they were born. All the problems and issues they could have down the road. It was like I jumped into a dark hole and couldn’t escape. I researched hospitals and experimental drugs and jotted notes down in a notebook the whole time. The odds weren’t in our favor. I already knew that. But that didn’t mean there wasn’t hope. And I had to have hope. If I didn’t have that, there was nothing to hold on to.

I turned to what I knew about James’ condition. I learned about the different chambers of the heart, not knowing which of his was affected by his cardiac episode. Just the words cardiac episode were rather vague, not providing much help at all. But if he had surgery it was definitely more serious than he was letting on. I knew all about his stress levels and how they affected his heart. He was supposed to be careful. And I couldn’t help thinking that if I had been a little more careful, a little more aware of my surroundings, none of this would have happened. I could have prevented what happened to my son. I could have prevented what happened to James. I could have prevented all of this.

I tried to ignore the thought as I jotted down the name of the best cardiologist in the United States. I had never cared about James’ money until this moment. We had all the best everything at our disposal. There was no reason for us to stay here in New York City if the best of the best wasn’t here. And it wasn’t. Not for Liam or James. We’d either fly the doctors we needed out here or go directly to them.

Only once my research for my husband and son was thoroughly exhausted did I start looking into my own problems. It took me a while to figure out how to spell bilateral oophorectomy. And once I figured it out, I wish that I hadn’t. The sadness I had felt when I first found out was heightened even more now that I knew what it was like to have children. I never want to stop at two. I wanted three or four or more. I wiped the tears away from underneath my eyes. It wasn’t reversible. There wasn’t anything that anyone could do. Liam would be my last child. End of story. And I wasn’t sure if he’d live. I missed out on his first few weeks. I missed out on his birth. I missed out on everything and it was my last chance to experience it.

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