Chapter 37
Grace Holloway
A couple of hours later
It’s been one of the most painful days of my life, and one in which my faith in God has been tested in ways I never imagined.
Having both of my daughters completely broken, living between hospital corridors and cold, sterile rooms, carrying pain I can’t begin to ease… It’s the kind of heartbreak that shatters a parent. It’s not easy to witness. It’s not easy to know that you can’t fix it.
Guilt claws at me every hour. Maybe I failed them. Maybe there was something I could have done differently. And that thought breaks me, because I trusted God. I trusted my faith. I truly believed I was doing the right thing for both of them, with the man I love by my side.
But we failed—both of us.
And now they are the ones paying for it.
Mada has been drifting in and out of consciousness because of the medication. She’s still erratic, fragile, and the doctors have had to sedate her more than once. She went too long without proper psychiatric care, and I can’t believe I didn’t see it sooner.
She’s a master concealer. They both are. But I should have been more present. More insistent. Less willing to believe in quiet smiles and vague reassurances.
Khalee hasn’t left that boy’s side since she found him.
She sleeps curled up beside him as if her body remembers him even when her mind tries to protect her.
His parents have allowed her that space, and I understand why.
For her, this isn’t just grief. It’s a reckoning.
A truth that arrived too late but still rooted itself deep. It’s love, unfiltered and consuming.
Time is running out, though. And I don’t know how much more strength I have left in me. I’m starting to wonder if God does because I can’t be the one to pull my daughter away from the love of her life.
And I don’t know how to help her. I don’t know how to help any of them.
“Hi.”
The voice is gentle, barely a sound. I turn and find her there—Kaze’s mother—standing just a few feet away with her arms wrapped around herself.
Her cheeks are freshly dry, but her eyes are anything but calm.
They’re green, bright and clouded all at once, carrying a weight that sinks into my chest the moment I meet her gaze.
“Hi, ” I answer softly, slipping my rosary into my pocket and retrieving the coffee I’d been waiting for. The warmth feels too comforting, too normal for a place like this.
I hold it out of habit, then glance at the machine again.
“Do you want one?” I ask, already reaching for more coins, needing to offer her something. Anything.
She shakes her head. “No, thank you. I… I was just, ”
Her words falter. Her lips press together like she’s trying to swallow everything she feels. Her gaze drifts toward the hallway. Toward her son. And I see it written all over her, the fear, the helplessness, the ache of waiting for a goodbye that hasn’t come yet.
“Walk with me, ” I say, gently interrupting the silence that’s growing too heavy between us. She hesitates. Her hand brushes her arm, as if grounding herself. Then she nods, slow and quiet, following me without a word.
We reach the far end of the hallway, where the lighting softens and the hum of machines fades into a quieter kind of stillness.
There’s a small sitting area, half-forgotten, tucked into a corner.
We sit, slowly, side by side but not too close.
The silence between us isn’t cold. It’s a comfort neither of us knew we needed.
“Thank you for being so understanding of Khalee’s state, ” I say after a moment. My fingers tighten around the coffee cup I haven’t sipped from. “I… I’m so sorry for this. I’m so sorry for Kaze.”
She exhales, slow and deep, like she’s been holding it in for days. Maybe longer.
“I’m sorry too, ” she says. Her voice isn’t loud, but it trembles just enough to reveal what it’s carrying. “For him. For your daughter. For everything they lost before they even had the chance to begin.”
I nod, but the guilt is a weight that doesn’t move.
She looks up, meeting my eyes, really meeting them.
“I hoped, you know, ” she begins. “I hoped and prayed every day of his life that he would find a reason to live. Something, someone, anything that made the pain worth fighting. And when he finally did… I wasn’t aware of it.
I didn’t know your daughter existed. I didn’t know she meant that much to him. Not until it was too late.”
“She never told me either, ” I admit. The words leave my mouth slowly.
“They kept it a secret. I only discovered it recently and…” I stop myself, steadying my breath.
There are things I could say, but some truths won’t help.
Khalee told me she saw him. Told me she thought he was a ghost. But what would that mean to Samantha now?
Nothing that could bring her comfort. “I just… I couldn’t believe she kept it from me for so long. ”
“They both did, ” she says, barely above a whisper. “When Kaze left that night, he was desperate. I thought it was because he was high again.”
She hesitates, brushing her thumb along the edge of her sweater sleeve.
“He struggled, you know. For a long time, he wasn’t himself. First, it was the depression. Then the alcohol. Then the drugs. He disappeared into it all.”
She looks toward the window, eyes unfocused, somewhere far away.
“But now… I don’t think that night was about that. He wasn’t doing well, no. But I’ve never seen him like that. So determined. So… frantic to get somewhere. And that’s what killed him.”
Her voice finally breaks, and so does she. The tears come quietly at first, slipping past her lashes before she can blink them away. She covers her face with both hands, as if trying to catch the pieces before they scatter, as if she could hold herself together if she just tried hard enough.
I sit beside her, saying nothing. Just breathing with her. Just existing in the same pain, even if it isn’t mine. I can’t begin to imagine the weight she carries, the ache of watching your child fade in slow motion while the world around you demands patience and peace.
No parent should ever watch their child die.
Time begins to move strangely. It stretches and folds between sobs and silences and fragments of conversation we barely remember starting. The room stays quiet, wrapped in the soft hum of distant hospital sounds and the warmth of the setting sun pressing against the windows.
The light shifts toward gold. The horizon pulls it gently down, stretching shadows across the floor. And I know what that means.
Before long, a nurse appears, quiet and gentle, her eyes speaking the words we don’t want to hear.
After a few heavy breaths and the kind of silence that only deep misery can create, we begin walking back toward Kaze’s room.
It’s time.
“At least they found each other in the end, ” she says beside me, her voice barely more than a breath, worn thin by sorrow.
I glance toward the window on my left, watching the sun surrender to the edge of the world. It slips away slowly, the same way I feel myself slipping into the inevitable—into the moment where I’ll have to watch my baby girl fall apart, again.
“Not all miracles come to save us, ” I whisper. “Some only come to help us say goodbye. But either way, they’re all gifts.”
We reach Kaze’s room, and the moment Samantha sees her husband, she walks straight into his arms. She holds on to him like he is the only thing keeping her upright, like if she lets go, the world will collapse around her. Her body trembles, silent and small, wrapped in grief too heavy to speak.
Just outside the door, my husband is waiting for me. My lifeline. His eyes meet mine, and I can tell he has been carrying the same storm I have. I have never seen his gaze so weighed down, so full of quiet pain. The exhaustion is etched into his face, carved into every line around his eyes.
“Mada?” I ask, my voice soft. I didn’t have the strength to spend much time with her today, and just saying her name fills me with guilt.
“Still asleep, ” he says gently. His hand lifts to my cheek, brushing a strand of hair back. His touch is warm and familiar, grounding me in this moment. “How are you, dear?”
“Better now that you’re here, ” I whisper.
He presses a kiss to my forehead, and we wrap our arms around each other. It only lasts a few seconds, but it holds everything. All the words we don’t say. All the fear. All the love.
“Khalee?” he asks softly now.
“Still where I left her, ” I murmur.
Before either of us can say more, the doctor approaches.
His expression is somber, heavy with the kind of sorrow that never gets easier, no matter how many times he has to carry it.
He stops near us and looks from me to Kaze’s parents, speaking gently, with that quiet tone doctors use when there’s nothing left to offer but mercy.
“I’m so sorry to all of you, ” he begins. “But as agreed, we’re now preparing to turn off the machines. We’ve kept him stable for as long as we could. And although I know this isn’t what anyone hoped for, it’s with immense sadness that I say… It’s time.”
No one speaks.
The air seems to leave the hallway, as if the weight of those words has pressed everything else out.
Samantha’s hand tightens around her husband’s. Her eyes are full of something that looks like protest, but she doesn’t speak it out loud. Horace just closes his eyes and nods once, slow and reluctant.
I feel my husband’s fingers find mine again, grounding me before the room begins to sway.
“Let me get my daughter before you do it,” I ask, and the doctor just nods.
I take a slow breath and let go of my husband’s hand. My steps are heavy, each one echoing louder than the last as I walk toward the room where my daughter has stayed for the last hours. I pause at the doorway, my hand hovering near the handle.
She’s still there.
Curled beside him, her head resting near his shoulder, her body molded into the shape of grief and longing. She doesn’t stir, but her hand is wrapped around his like she’s trying to hold him in this world with sheer will alone.
I don’t want to wake her. I don’t want to say what I have to say.
But I must.
“Khalee, ” I whisper, just loud enough for her to hear, just soft enough not to startle her.
She doesn’t move at first. For a moment, I think she’s still asleep. Then her fingers twitch around his, and I see the way her breath changes.
She heard me.
“Baby girl, ” I say again, stepping closer, voice trembling now. “You need to come with me.”
This time, she stirs. Slowly, she lifts her head, dark eyes heavy and red, confusion clouding her expression as if waking from a dream she doesn’t want to leave.
Her gaze shifts from his face to mine.
The second she sees me clearly, she knows.
“No, ” she whispers, shaking her head before the word is fully formed. “No. Not yet.”
I kneel beside the bed, reaching for her hand.
“They’re waiting, ” I say softly, barely able to get the words out. “It’s time.”
She closes her eyes and lets her head rest against his shoulder again, her body folding into his like she belongs nowhere else.
“Please, ” she breathes. “Just… a little longer.”
A new voice breaks the silence, low and tender.
“She can be with him, if she wishes.”
It’s Samantha. Kaze’s mother. She’s standing just behind us now, her voice barely holding together. Khalee nods, unable to speak, her face now pressed to his chest. Her tears come freely again as she whispers I love you over and over into the stillness, as if repetition could anchor him here.
The room begins to shift around us.
Horace and Samantha move to the opposite side of the bed. My husband steps close to me, wraps an arm around my shoulders, pulling me upright, holding me steady. His chest rises and falls too quickly. I can feel the pain radiating from his silence.
The medical team enters quietly, almost reverently.
No bright lights.
No clipped orders.
Just muted movements, practiced and careful, like a ritual they’ve performed too many times.
One nurse checks the IV drip. Another turns off the ventilator’s audible alarm but leaves it running for a moment longer. A doctor confirms the timing in a low voice with a second physician.
Legal protocol.
At least two witnesses.
No mistakes.
Then, one final check of vital signs. And then the main monitor goes dark. Next, the ECG is silenced. The oxygen monitor darkens.
A nurse gently removes the ventilator tubing from the corner of his mouth. One of the doctors places a stethoscope to his chest for a final confirmation.
All eyes are on his body. Waiting for stillness. And it comes.
His chest stops rising, and for a long, terrible moment, there is nothing.
No breath.
No sound.
Just the aching hush of loss settling over the room like dust.
Khalee’s arms wrap around him tighter as if she can hold the life inside him a little longer.
Samantha’s sobs break again, this time sharper and helpless. Horace leans forward, pressing his forehead to the edge of the bed. My husband’s grip tightens around my shoulders.
Even the nurses turn away, their faces tight with sympathy and fatigue.
It feels final. Irrevocable. Like the air has thickened, and no one will breathe normally again.
Then something impossible happens.
A twitch.
Barely there.
A flicker under the ribs. At first, I think it’s a trick of the light: a nerve firing, a final reflex. But then I see it again. His chest moves. A shallow, shaky inhale, followed by a pause.
Then another breath.
Khalee lifts her head, eyes wide, lips parted, as if she’s forgotten how to speak. Her hand flies to his face, fingers trembling. “He’s… breathing, ” she whispers. No one moves.
The doctors are frozen.
One nurse fumbles with the oxygen.
Another reaches for the stethoscope again, eyes wide in disbelief. “He’s breathing on his own, ” the doctor murmurs, stunned.
For a moment, no one believes it.
Then chaos blooms.
A nurse gasps. One of the doctors rushes to the monitor, eyes wide. Another checks the pulse manually, fingers pressed to Kaze’s neck.
The room erupts into movement. Commands here and there. Real urgency. Real hope.
Khalee clings to him, but one of the nurses gently pulls her away, needing space to work. She resists at first, sobbing and laughing at the same time, until I reach her.
My arms wrap around her, and a second later, her father joins us, holding us both as if we’re the only thing steadying him to the ground.
“He came back, Mom, ” she says, her voice broken with joy. “I told you. I told you he would come back.”
“He did, baby girl, ” I whisper, kissing her hair. “He did.”
Her father pulls us closer, and we cry, all three of us, not just for what we almost lost, but for what we just got back.
Jesus Christ, we cry.
Because Kaze is alive.
And this time, he isn’t just surviving.
He’s coming back to actually live.