No Room for Forgiveness

Ava's fever was getting worse by the minute. She hugged my arm and mumbled while dozing off.

“Mommy, why doesn't Daddy care about us? Does he not want us anymore?”

I wouldn’t manage to answer the question even if I was still alive. I wanted to tell her that none of this was her fault. The only reason her father was being so cruel was that he did not love Mommy anymore.

He had fallen for Zelda. Even if Max was not from his flesh, he still doted on him. His problem was not with Ava specifically, but only with the fact that she was a child he had with me.

Ava curled herself into a ball, appearing frail. Despite that, she was very headstrong and stayed by my side.

Around midday, a gleam of sunlight shone into the room. Several beads of sweat glistened on her forehead. She held my hand which had gone cold for a long time, then she started to cry.

“Mommy, I'm so hungry. I feel terrible. Mommy, please wake up. I miss you.”

She was suffering from the terrible heat sweltering inside her body. With that, she went to the bathroom to rinse herself with cold water so that she could cool off.

The sudden change in temperature only made her feel worse. She shivered from the spike of cold.

After that, she scrambled to the kitchen and managed to find a jar of pickled cabbage which she stuffed herself with. It was a jar of pickled cabbage that I had bought but forgotten to put inside the refrigerator. After three days, it had already turned yellow.

She had always been a very picky girl, but now she was eating pickled vegetables without complaint.

Then, she brought the jar to the couch and finished its contents in front of me with great effort. I could tell from the look in her eyes that she was pushing herself to finish them. She refused to back down.

“Mommy, look. I will take care of myself until you wake up.”

I felt as if a thousand needles were prickling at my heart. That could hardly count as a proper meal, yet she had to force herself to eat it just to stay alive.

What had the child ever done wrong? She was just a victim pincered between the conflict between Eliott and me.

I thought Eliott’s outburst yesterday was only coming out of a place of anger. In the past, he would always come home eventually even if we had a major argument. This was the longest he had been away. He was still nowhere to be seen even though he should have finished work by this hour.

While I was getting increasingly desperate, the phone on the table suddenly rang.

It was Eliott calling.