15. Haley
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Haley
Three Years Later
“I’ve tried everything, Meg.” My voice was shaking and I couldn’t make it stop.
Lily was burning in my arms, her little body radiating heat through her pajamas. “It won’t come down. Her pediatrician wants me to hospitalize her.”
“Okay, I’m sending Daniel.” Megan’s voice was calm but I could hear her already moving, already grabbing keys. “He can drive you.”
“No, it’s too far out.” I pressed my cheek against Lily’s forehead and felt the fever searing through her skin. She whimpered and curled closer into me, her tiny fingers gripping my shirt like I could fix this, like I could make it stop. “I’m booking an Uber. God, Meg. I can’t-”
My throat closed up. I couldn’t finish the sentence because finishing it meant saying the words out loud, and saying them out loud made them real.
“Shut up.” Megan said it gently. “Don’t think about all that right now. She’s going to be fine. Kids spike fevers. It happens. Just get her to the hospital and call me when you get there. Or I can stay on the call through the cab ride.”
“Thanks.” I clutched Lily tighter. “I might just do that.”
I hung up and looked at my daughter. Three years old.
Three years of watching her grow from the tiny bundle they’d placed in my arms to this fierce little person who asked why about everything and laughed at jokes she didn’t understand and fell asleep every night with her stuffed rabbit clutched to her chest.
She was everything. She was my entire world condensed into thirty pounds of stubbornness and curiosity.
And right now she was sick and I couldn’t fix it and the fear was eating me alive.
“It’s okay, baby.” I smoothed her damp hair back from her forehead, my hand trembling. “Mommy’s going to make it better. I promise.”
She didn’t respond. She just whimpered again and pressed her face into my neck, seeking comfort she trusted me to provide.
I bundled her in a blanket and grabbed the emergency bag I always kept by the door. Three years of doing this alone had taught me to be ready for anything.
The Uber arrived and I carried her out into the night, holding her against my chest like I could shield her from whatever was happening inside her body. She was so small. So fragile.
How did anyone survive parenthood when it meant watching someone you loved more than breathing be hurt and knowing you couldn’t stop it?
After Lily was born, I’d needed to get away.
Diane and Caleb had made it impossible to stay.
He’d signed away his rights to our daughter, walked out of the courtroom without looking back, and then started sending me messages.
Late night texts about how I’d destroyed his life.
How I’d turned his family against him. How everything that had gone wrong was my fault.
James had handled Caleb. Gone to the board, had him removed from the company for conduct unbecoming of a Sinclair. Family values, they’d called it. Family business standards. Caleb had lost everything, and apparently that was my fault too.
So I’d packed up my life and my daughter and moved two hours away, into an apartment James had found for me. He’d covered the deposit, the first few months of rent, the security and the furniture and all the things I couldn’t afford on a freelance editor’s salary with a newborn.
But that was where things stopped between us. We didn’t talk anymore, not really. Birthday messages. Holiday texts. Pictures of Lily that he’d respond to with emojis. We never saw each other in person.
I wasn’t sure which of us had started the distance, but I was grateful for it.
Everything was complicated enough without adding whatever we were to the equation.
The driver pulled up to the hospital entrance and I carried Lily inside, her little body limp against my shoulder. They took us back quickly, and asked questions I barely heard.
“Mama.” She reached for me, her face crumpling. “Mama, no.”
“I’m right here, baby.” I grabbed her hand and held it while they worked. “I’m not going anywhere. Mama’s right here.”
They got her settled in a room and her eyes finally closed, the medication pulling her into sleep. I sat beside her bed and watched her breathe, counting each rise and fall of her chest like it was a prayer.
Megan was two hours away. I didn’t have anyone else to call. My mother and I hadn’t spoken in years. The friends I’d made in this city were acquaintances at best, people I waved to at the grocery store, not people I called at midnight when my world was falling apart.
I was alone. I’d been alone for three years, and I’d convinced myself I was okay with it, but sitting here in this hospital room with my daughter hooked up to machines and no one beside me, I felt the weight of that loneliness.
I pulled out my phone to call Megan, to ask her to talk me through the night even if she couldn’t be here.
“Hales.”
I released the breath I was holding. The voice meant everything to me.
I turned around. James was standing in the doorway.
He looked the same and completely different.
The same eyes, the same jaw, the same way of standing like he was ready to solve whatever problem you threw at him.
But there were lines around his eyes that hadn’t been there before, and gray at his temples, and something in his expression that was older and softer than I remembered.
I broke.
I didn’t mean to. I’d been holding myself together all night, staying strong for Lily. But seeing him there, seeing someone who knew me standing in that doorway, shattered every wall I’d built.
The tears came and I couldn’t stop them. He crossed the room and his arms were around me and I was crying into his chest like I was the one who needed to be held.
“Hey, hey.” His voice was soft against my hair, his hand moving in circles on my back. “She’s going to be okay. She’s a strong girl. Gets that from her mother.”
“What are you even doing here?” I pulled back enough to look at his face, my eyes blurry with tears. “How did you know?”
“Daniel called me.” His hands were still on my shoulders, steadying me.
I did the math in my head. Two hours, minimum, at normal speed. I’d barely been at the hospital for ninety minutes.
“You must have driven like a maniac.”
“Don’t worry.” The corner of his mouth lifted. “I didn’t indulge in any reckless driving. Just very motivated driving.”
I laughed.
“Come on.” He guided me to the chair beside Lily’s bed. “Sit down. You look like you haven’t breathed in hours.”
I sank into the chair and looked at my daughter, her chest rising and falling in that steady rhythm that meant she was okay, she was still here, she was going to be fine. “I keep watching her sleep and thinking about all the things that could go wrong.”
“That’s called being a parent.” He pulled up another chair and sat beside me, close enough that I could feel his presence without touching.
We sat in silence for a moment, watching Lily breathe. She looked so small in that hospital bed, her stuffed rabbit tucked under her arm, her face finally peaceful now that the fever was coming down.
“She’s beautiful,” James said quietly. “I’ve seen the pictures, but pictures don’t do her justice.”
“She has your stubbornness.” I said it without thinking. “I know that doesn’t make sense biologically, but she does. She digs in her heels and refuses to budge and I think of you every time.”
He looked at me, and I couldn’t read his expression.
“I’m sorry, Haley.” His voice was soft. “I should have been there more. These past three years, I should have called more often. I should have-”
I turned to face him fully. “You’ve done enough, James. More than enough. The reason we have a roof over our heads is because of you.”
“You pay the rent.”
“Yeah, I do.” I held his gaze. “But don’t think for a second that I don’t know how much those apartments actually cost. I looked up listings in that building. I know the market rate. So I know you’re paying a part of it.”
His face shifted, caught between denial and acknowledgment.
“Hales, I didn’t mean to-”
“I know.” I reached over and put my hand on his arm. “And I appreciate the help. I’ve been selfish about it too, honestly. With Lily and all the expenses, having that apartment has been everything. I couldn’t have done this without you.”
“I don’t want you to feel burdened about it.” He covered my hand with his. “You don’t have to pay me back. Consider it an investment in the future Shaw.”
I laughed at that, a real laugh, and saw his face light up at the sound.
“The future Shaw?”
“Lily.” He nodded toward the bed. “She’s going to be somebody important. I can tell. I’m just getting in on the ground floor.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“I’ve been told.”
We fell quiet again.
I was surprised by how easy this was. Three years of distance and careful boundaries and convincing myself I was fine without him, and here we were, sitting beside each other like no time had passed at all.
He looked good. That was the thing I kept noticing even though I didn’t want to. Three years had been kind to him.
He looked like someone I could lean on.
And there was something about all of that that made me deeply uneasy.
Because the feelings I’d packed away three years ago weren’t as gone as I’d convinced myself they were.
They were right here, sitting beside me in a hospital room, and I had no idea what to do about it.