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My hand slowly dropped back to my side.
“My apartment will have a new person living there. I don’t have family…just a couple friends. Everything happened so fast… I can’t really process all of this. And I don’t want to leave Claire.”
My stare was empty and endless, my eyes flicking back and forth between hers. Her gaze was full of desperate expectation, like I was somehow responsible for her well-being now. “You aren’t my problem.”
She gave a slight wince, like a knife had slashed her cheek.
I raised my hand again and, this time, forced the money into her palm. “I appreciate what you’ve done for Claire. I got you out of there. I’ve given you money. My debt is repaid.” I opened the door and waited for her to walk down the steps to the sidewalk and disappear into the darkness, disappear from our lives forever.
In a haze, she moved over the threshold, her breath immediately escaping as vapor in the nighttime air. She looked down the empty street, her breath releasing more frequently from her nostrils. “I know he’ll come for me.”
“Leave the country. You have the means.”
“I don’t have an ID…anything. And even if I did, I don’t know how to start over. I wouldn’t even have shoes if one of the nurses at the hospital hadn’t found a pair in my size. I’m a dancer, that’s all I know.” She turned back to me, pleading with her eyes.
Still didn’t understand why this was my problem. I had my daughter back, and all I wanted was to go back in there and make her macaroni, her favorite. I’d bought it at the store today, hoping I’d make it for her tonight. “Go to the police.”
“They were useless last time—”
“I’m not trying to be an asshole right now, but your well-being is not my problem. I have a little girl in there who needs me. Frankly, I don’t give a damn about you. I don’t give a damn about anyone but her.”
She breathed harder, vapor rising up from her nostrils. “I get it, and I don’t want you to think I’m a charity case—”
“It’s starting to seem that way.”
Her eyes gave a flash, like lightning that brightened the sky before the storm hit. “My entire purpose for the last few months…was protecting Claire. Without her, I don’t know what to do with myself. I don’t want to say goodbye—”
“I appreciate your dedication to my daughter. Truly, I do. But she’s my daughter—not yours.”
“I never implied she wasn’t—”
“Goodbye, Constance.” I started to shut the door on her.
“That’s it?” she asked incredulously. “There’s this horrible place that tortures women for being angels, and you don’t care? You aren’t going to do something about it?”
The door steadied, and I stared at her. “I said it once. I’ll say it again. I don’t give a damn about anyone but her.” I shut the door, locked it, and returned to my daughter in the other room.
Even though I slept and woke up the following day, my life still felt like a dream.
The best dream I’d ever had.
The mattress bounced with her little weight as she jumped on my bed first thing in the morning, before the sun had finally risen and pierced the fog.
My eyes opened to see her little face above mine.
I smiled like I’d never smiled in my life.
“Dad!” She grabbed my arm and tugged on it. “Come on, wake up.”
I shut my eyes quickly and went still, pretending to be asleep.
She tugged on me again. “Dad!” She laughed as she pulled on my arm. “I know you’re awake…you’re smiling.”
I opened my eyes again and looked at her, my arms barreling around her and pulling her close. “You caught me, smart girl.” She was in her pink pajamas with the ponies on them, her entire room decorated with little white horses with flowy pink hair. She loved dolls and stories about princesses, but she also loved getting her hands dirty digging for bugs.
“I’m smarter than Daddy.”
“Let’s not get carried away…”
“I don’t smile when I’m trying to pretend to be asleep,” she said with a laugh.
“You got me there.”
She pushed out of my arms and sat beside me. “Are we going to go see Mom?”
“Yes.” She was still at the hospital, and from what Bartholomew had told me, she’d pulled through and was resting in her room.
“Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go!” She slid off my bed and ran down the hallway, her little feet loud against the hardwood floor, turning muffled when she hit the various rugs, and then becoming loud again on the wood.
My smile faded—because I thought I’d never hear that sound again.
“Mommy, are you okay?” Claire stood at her bedside, looking at her mother in bed with sad eyes, not understanding the cuff around her arm, the tubes going into her body, the white gown, the constant beeping of the monitors.
