Chapter 26
XXVI
DAISY
It took her another thirteen days to step inside the hospital, though she’d driven there half a dozen times, circling the car park, staring at the glass doors, willing herself forward. Each time, she turned back. Each time, she told herself she would return tomorrow.
Looking back, she was no longer certain what frightened her more: the possibility of Callan failing to recognise her, the prospect of seeing him for the first time since the accident, or the gnawing fear that, upon doing so, she would realise she no longer loved him.
The night before she finally went, sleep eluded her.
An hour here, perhaps two if she was lucky.
Their daughter cried incessantly, her tiny body curling into hers as if she somehow knew that her mother was unravelling.
The doctors had called it colic, but to Daisy, it was unrelenting torment.
When the baby wasn’t screaming, she was latched onto her, leaving her skin raw and exhaustion tightening its noose around her neck.
And yet, when she finally made it to the hospital, when she stepped through those doors and saw Callan’s mother waiting, none of it seemed to matter.
She stepped into her path, intercepted Daisy before she could reach his room. “What are you doing here?” she hissed.
Daisy stiffened and waited for her to notice the car seat in her right arm, only she didn’t. “I’ve come to see my husband.”
“You’ve had nearly two weeks. Where have you been?”
Her mouth opened, then closed again, the lump in her throat rising. She’d rehearsed this moment, imagined how it would unfold, but even so, it caught her off guard.
“Where have I been?” she echoed, her voice foreign to her own ears.
“I have been trying to keep myself from drowning. I’ve been alone with a newborn who never stops crying, who only wants me, and I—I can’t even drive.
” She exhaled, shaking her head. “And you. You never called. She’s your granddaughter. She might be your only grandchild.”
For a moment, Callan’s mother simply stared at her.
Her jaw was tight, her expression unreadable.
Then, slowly, she stepped forward and wrapped her arms around her.
Daisy hadn’t expected it, and perhaps that was why it broke her.
She crumpled into her embrace, silent sobs wracking through her as she whispered, “It’s alright. It’s going to be alright.”
People often say that hurt begets hurt, that pain turns us cruel, and Daisy had often wondered if that was why his mother had rejected her the way she had.
She spent countless hours trying to understand the source of that coldness, searching for some pattern or reason that might explain the emotional distance.
But as time passed, she started to question whether cruelty was the right label.
Maybe it wasn’t cruelty at all—perhaps it was desperation.
She was a widow, and Callan was her only son.
Since they'd started dating, however, there had been less time for her. On one hand, she was trying to navigate the uncertainty of her future, while on the other, her growing loneliness began to seep into her every thought, infecting her with a sense of isolation. Daisy couldn’t blame her for resenting her.
They entered Callan’s room together. He was asleep, his body limp against the sheets, tubes trailing from both arms. She’d braced herself for it, or so she thought she had, but the man lying in that bed was a stranger.
His face was gaunt, his skin pallid, a dark beard shadowing his jaw.
His lips were chapped, his hands motionless at his sides, and his chest rose and fell in shallow, uneven breaths, as though every inhale took everything he had.
“Why don’t I take her for a little while?” Callan’s mother murmured, her eyes flicking to the baby, still squirming against the pacifier the nurses had insisted she try. “Just long enough for you two to have a moment. I’ll bring her back if she gets too fussy.”
Daisy hesitated. The thought of handing her over, even for a minute, made something tight and sharp twist inside her chest. “It won’t be long.”
Callan’s mother smiled, her face lined with weariness but softened by something deeper, something knowing. “You never know. Maybe without your scent, she’ll settle more easily.”
Daisy nodded, her fingers trembling as she pressed a kiss to her daughter’s forehead and placed her gently into her grandmother’s arms.
As the door clicked closed behind them, leaving her and Callan alone, she leaned against him, her head resting on his chest. For months, she’d longed for the comfort of his presence, but as her face touched the bare skin of his chest, she felt no comfort.
His body was rigid, skin lukewarm. The scent of antiseptic clung to him—sterile, unfamiliar.
And perhaps most unsettling of all, there was no hand tracing slow circles against her back, no soft breath kissing her nape.
Wherever he was, it wasn’t with her.
Logan had once told her in his emails, “Dreams are often the body’s way of making sense of things. They’re like coded messages from the unconscious, revealing our hopes, inner conflicts, fears, and desires we cannot quite express.”
Daisy hadn’t remembered a dream in months when that day, he came to her—Callan. They were in bed, their daughter’s cot to her right. The morning sun streamed through a small gap in the curtains, and the rich aroma of coffee lingered in the air.
“You’re awake,” Callan said, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “Did you sleep well?”
Even in the dream, she froze. It felt so real, everything from his skin's warmth to his voice's cadence.
“Is this…real?” she asked.
“Does it matter? We’re all here: you, me, and her.” He paused, his gaze drifting to the cot. “Ida’s beautiful. I can’t believe she’s here.”
“Ida?”
“Isn’t that what you wanted to call her?” he replied, stroking her face.
They’d tossed names around, a few possibles, but nothing definite. Since his accident, though, it’d been hard to recollect any of it.
“Is it?” she whispered. “I can’t remember.”
“How could you forget that?” His fingers trailed to her lips and stopped. “Ida, like the journalist.”
She tried to savour the moment, to paint the image of him in her brain, but it was interrupted by the sound of frantic beeping.
“Ignore it,” she pleaded, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Please.”
“What is that sound?”
He stood and checked the wardrobe, then stepped into the ensuite, ignoring her.
“Callan, please, just come back to bed.”
The room twisted, the sunlight bleeding into the fluorescent glow of his hospital ward. She felt a hand on her, but she squeezed her eyes shut, willing the moment to last just a little longer.
“Daisy,” a voice said. “Daisy, wake up.”
Her eyes flickered open. One of Callan’s monitors was blaring, and a nurse she didn’t recognise was standing beside her, shaking her gently. Moments later, a doctor entered.
“She needs to leave,” he said without so much as glancing in her direction.
The nurse led her into the corridor, where she stood in stunned silence, trying to make sense of what was happening. Callan’s mother was nowhere to be seen, and the hallway was empty save for a few nurses whispering at their station.
And in that moment, she thought of him—Logan.
She would have given anything, sold her soul to the devil and her life to the highest bidder just to have him there with her.
He would have told her not to panic and explained, in his steady voice, that although life might be different now, it wasn’t over.
Perhaps he would have stolen a glance at Callan’s notes and offered some comfort, some diluted truth about the road ahead.
Or perhaps he would’ve been honest and told her the answer to the question that would haunt her in the months to come.
But he wasn’t there, and she was alone, forced to stand in the ruins of the life she’d once known.