Chapter 12
COLE
Itook all the empty bottles that Jiya had gathered and put them in the bin.
Lucas’ words echoed in my head when I fell asleep that night, and then a dream jolted me awake. It felt so real that I could not tell whether I was sleeping or reliving something I had lost forever.
Eva and Chloe were at the park.
Eva stood beside me while I pushed Chloe on the swing. My daughter’s beautiful blonde hair swished through the air with each movement, and the sound of her laughter filled everything around me. I played with her on the merry-go-round and the slides.
I was happy.
I was laughing.
I could not believe they were with me again.
For those few moments, I felt whole in a way I had not felt in two years. There was no weight in my chest, no guilt choking me, no constant ache hollowing me out from the inside.
There was only them.
Only us.
A few moments later, Chloe hugged me and said, “It is not your fault, Daddy. Don’t blame yourself.”
Then Eva stood beside me and kissed me. Her hazel eyes looked deep into mine, and I felt the presence of her love as clearly as if she were truly there.
“I love you. We are both fine, and we miss you. We are watching over you every day. It’s time to let us go. Stop blaming yourself and find love again.”
Then they started walking away.
I tried to follow them, but my feet would not move.
It felt as if they were rooted in the ground.
Panic gripped my chest like a vise. I yelled out to them because I wanted to move, wanted to hold them, wanted to touch their faces, wanted to kiss Eva one last time and run my fingers through Chloe’s hair.
Desperation ripped through me so violently that even in the dream, it felt unbearable.
They smiled and waved at me and then disappeared into the light.
The dream felt so real that when I woke up, I could still feel the ache of losing them all over again.
A crushing pressure pressed against my ribs like a fist. I sat there for a few seconds in the darkness, breathing hard, trying to collect myself.
Sorrow flooded my chest like water breaking through a dam.
I got out of bed and walked to my daughter’s room.
It was the first time I had stepped inside since the accident.
I sat down on her bed.
The white letters of her name on the pink wall stared back at me, and something inside me cracked open. I reached for her pillow and blanket and touched them carefully, almost reverently. The fabric was soft beneath my fingers, and that simple touch nearly undid me.
Her dollhouse stood in the corner, and the sight of it brought back memories of all the times I had sat on that floor playing tea party with her and her friends. I could almost hear her voice telling me which cup was mine and which stuffed animal needed more cake.
Tears rolled down my cheeks before I even realized they had started.
When I saw her clothes hanging in the closet, I stood and walked toward them.
I touched her favourite yellow dress and brought it close enough to smell.
The familiar scent of the baby powder Eva always used on her drifted into my nose.
For the first time in a long time, I smiled through my tears.
It was a small, broken smile, but it was real.
Wiping my nose, I left Chloe’s room and walked into my bedroom, straight to Eva’s closet.
The scent of her clothes hit me immediately, and with it came a rush of memories so strong it almost knocked the breath out of me.
I stood there for a long moment, letting myself feel all of it.
Then I went into the bathroom. Her perfumes and makeup were still sitting on the counter exactly where she had left them.
Fresh tears rolled down my blotchy skin.
I walked back into the bedroom, sat on the bed, and covered my face with my hands for a moment because the weight of everything felt too big to carry.
Then I felt warmth spread through my body, almost as if someone were hugging me.
My shoulders relaxed.
I looked toward the sunrise filtering through the curtains, and I wrapped my arms around myself.
For the first time in years, I felt a release of tension in my body.
My heart felt full instead of hollow. Hope flickered inside me like the first light after a long night.
It was quiet and fragile, but it was there.
I could not explain it, and I did not want to question it too closely in case it vanished.
I knew then that it was time.
The next day, I checked myself into a private detox centre. It was going to be a sixty-day program. I was not worried about the restaurant because it would be ready by the time I got out. Jiya had told Jack that she had everything under control.
I needed to take care of myself.
It was not easy admitting that, but I knew I had to do it. I wanted to change. I wanted to get better. More than that, I was finally exhausted enough from living half-dead that the idea of trying to live again no longer scared me more than staying the same.
The first five days at the centre were the hardest.
Withdrawal symptoms woke me up with clammy skin and pounding headaches.
My body trembled. I did not feel like eating.
Anxiety, fatigue, and nervousness took over my mind and body until it felt like I was fighting myself every waking hour.
Every minute dragged. My thoughts would race, then collapse into fog, then race again.
At times, I felt like crawling out of my own skin just to escape what my body was demanding.
For almost two years, my routine had been the same. I woke up with alcohol, and I went to sleep with alcohol.
Now that had stopped.
Depriving my body of it shocked my system. I had been spiralling downhill for so long that I had stopped caring what it was doing to me. I had told myself it did not matter because nothing mattered anymore. Now I was being forced to face what I had done to myself, and there was no numbing it away.
The symptoms were painful, but I made the choice not to give up.
My life had become meaningless, and for a long time, I had wanted it to end.
But that day, Lucas and Jiya had saved me.
I owed it to Eva and Chloe to try. Most importantly, I owed it to myself.
I had spent too long punishing myself for surviving.
Maybe surviving did not have to be a punishment anymore.
The doctors, nurses, and staff at the centre were incredibly supportive and caring. After five days, when the withdrawal symptoms began to ease, I was scheduled for an appointment with a therapist.
“Good afternoon,” I said as I entered the therapist’s office.
The office was spacious and colourful, with different kinds of chairs and couches. The scent of citrus and lavender oils hung in the air.
I rolled my shoulders as anxiety churned inside me. I had never liked the idea of therapy. Talking had always seemed pointless when nothing could change what had happened.
“Hi! I’m Silvia Litt.”
She was a woman in her late fifties with strawberry-blonde hair and black-rimmed glasses. Despite her petite frame and small stature, she was beautiful in a comforting sort of way.
“Welcome,” she said with a gentle smile.
I visited Silvia every day at the centre.
Any reservations I had about therapy disappeared after our first session.
Her soothing voice and the way she explained things when I unburdened myself slowly eased some of the guilt and pain I had been carrying.
She never pushed too hard, but she never let me hide either.
Somehow she made space for both my grief and my resistance.
“The accident wasn’t caused by you, Cole,” Silvia said. “There was nothing you could have possibly done to control it. You can’t control external factors.”
“Yes, but had I been there with them, I wouldn’t feel so guilty right now.”
“Let’s talk about that.” She adjusted her glasses. “Why do you feel guilty?”
My throat tightened.
“I feel guilty because...” I said in a choked voice. “Because I chose work over them. I chose money over them. I chose the business over them.”
Even saying it aloud made shame burn through me.
She leaned forward slightly. “You might have chosen work before them, but your choosing work did not cause the plane to crash, Cole.”
I looked up at her.
“You chose work to provide for them. You chose work to give them a better life. Being a father and a husband, that’s your responsibility. It’s not wrong to do so.”
I sat back in the multi-coloured armchair, nodding slowly while reflecting on what she had just said.
I had never looked at it that way before, and part of me resisted it because guilt had become so familiar. But another part of me wanted to believe her. Another part of me was so tired of carrying the blame that the thought of setting even a little of it down felt shameful.
It was time to change that.
Jack visited me two weeks after I checked into the centre.
“How are you doing? How’s it going?” he asked.
“It’s hard, Jack. I won’t lie to you,” I said, looking him straight in the eye. “The therapy sessions help, but I still have a long way to go.”
“That’s good.”
“How are things at the restaurant so far? It’s almost time for the opening.”
“Yeah, that’s the thing. I hope we open on time.” Jack sighed.
My stomach tightened.
“What do you mean? What’s going on?”
Jiya had not mentioned anything whenever she came to see me with Lucas.
“Well, we had a couple of issues. One of the workers accidentally hit a water pipe, and the entire restaurant flooded,” Jack said, rubbing the back of his neck. “When that was taken care of, some of the chairs that needed to be upholstered broke because of the water damage.”
I went quiet.
Had letting Jiya co-run the restaurant been a mistake? The old instinct to expect disaster rose immediately. Hope still felt like something I did not quite know how to hold without bracing for it to collapse.
“That girl is truly working her butt off. Twenty-eight weeks pregnant, and she doesn’t seem to slow down.
She’s been in every day, and she takes care of Lucas.
I don’t know how she has the energy.” He sighed again.
“She’s taking care of everything and ensuring that we open on time.
Trust me when I say this, she won’t let you down. ”
I let out a long breath, smiled slowly, and bowed my head.
Hearing Jack say that Jiya would not let me down made something in me relax. For reasons I could not explain, I believed him. It made me feel that Eva’s dream might truly live again. And for the first time, the thought of that no longer filled me with fear alone.
It carried something else.
Hope.