LUNA'S REVENGE: Too Late For Second Chance

Ch 2: My Only One

Eloise’s POV:

“Mommy…”

I flinched a little hearing my Lili’s broken voice as I realized she had finally regained her consciousness after her first painful chemotherapy session.

Since her cancer had already started to widespread into the other vital organs, the doctor had urged me to initiate the chemotherapy, even before we could find a suitable bone marrow donor.

And even though Theodore and Elphaba came to the hospital to get their bone marrow matched with Liliana after the ugly spat, I was a little taken aback when I saw Vivene had accompanied them as well to get her bone marrow matched too!

Through their visit, I only saw Theodore and Elphaba pay a visit to Liliana while she was still unconscious. But long before her chemotherapy session, I saw all of them leave together.

Honestly, I couldn’t believe my eyes for a second when I saw that my husband didn’t even bother to comfort me once when I needed him the most here.

Instead, he left me all alone, stranded with my fear, while his entire attention was fixated on escorting his childhood sweetheart.

“My baby…” I slowly wiped the sweat off her forehead, trying to mask a fake small smile as I consoled her, “You did very well, my love. You didn’t even complain or cry a little during your first chemotherapy…even the doctor was really proud of you, Lili!”

“Mommy…” Her faint murmur sounded gloomy when she quietly glanced around the room before she urged, “Where is Daddy?”

My heart was torn into pieces the moment I heard her question, which I had somewhat anticipated.

But there was no way I could bring myself to speak about her father’s painful indifference towards her, as I tried to hide my glistening tears with another smile, “Daddy is very busy with his work, sweetie…but he has visited while you were still unconscious. He said that he will come again soon, and then once you get a little better, we will go to your favorite aquarium, Lili.”

My Lili has always been an obedient, sweet child, and even this time, while she was battling her grave illness, she nodded her head as if trying to understand my words.

But after a brief pause, I saw her small doe-eyes teared up a little when she murmured, “Mommy…I dreamt of playing tag with Daddy in our yard while I was asleep. But…why isn’t he here right now? Does Daddy not love me anymore? Because…I am sick?”

“No, honey! That’s not what it is…” My voice choked on the painful tears deep down my throat when I grabbed her tiny hands, planting kisses on them repeatedly.

I was doing my best to comfort her in every way possible, even though my heart was afraid her assumption might be true, “Daddy will come and visit you very soon again, sweetie. But Mommy is here with you always, right?”

“Mommy…I had made something…” With her wobbly hand, she pulled out a small chart paper from under her pillow, and handed it over to me with a faint smile, “Doctor uncle gave me the crayons to draw when I asked him, Mommy. See, I made our family portrait…and I wanted to show this to Daddy too…”

My vision blurred a little from tears when I saw with her small, frail hands, my Lili indeed drew a family picture, where I was holding onto her hand, but on her other side stood Theodore, but they had a little gap between them.

I could feel a churning agony rising inside me when I looked at the gap between my husband and daughter, which silently depicted all the indifference he had shown to her.

But I also noticed that she even drew her grandmother, Elphaba, standing next to me, which expressed her innocent desire to live altogether as one happy family.

And just seeing the picture, I couldn’t stop myself from sobbing hard anymore, clenching the paper with my palms. While I tried to hide my sobbing face from her, she quietly held my hand as if to comfort me, “Mommy…please don’t cry. I promise I will get well soon…and then…we will live happily together…”

Only heaven knows how much I am on the verge of doing anything and everything to make this wish of hers come true right now. But with the return of my husband’s first love, I couldn’t help but fear that my marriage and family life I had built together with Theo for the past seven years was on the verge of crumbling down.

Yet still, I clasped her hand tight, murmuring my pleas deep in my heart, hoping it might reach the heavens as a desperate prayer from a mother, ‘Please, Lili…You have to get better for Mommy…You have to come back to me because…You’re all I am left with in this world…’

……………….

But the very next day, I heard that dreadful news from the pack doctor right before I was on my way to escort Lili back home as she was granted a temporary discharge.

“I am very sorry to bring you this news, Luna…But none of your family members were a match for Lili’s donor, including you. I know we are extremely short on time, but we only have to rely on an external bone marrow donor as soon as possible.”

The moment I disconnected the call, it felt as if the ground had swept beneath my feet, leaving me struck in this never-ending loop of misery.

I was holding onto my crippling anxiety all this time with a fleeting hope that even if no one else, at least I or Theo might be the match for our daughter’s donor.

But now with that hope being crushed so cruelly, I clenched onto the steering wheel tight, pondering how am I supposed to find a donor quickly when her own father is prioritizing those damn negotiations over his daughter’s life?

Even now, he was nowhere to be found at home to accompany me so that we could bring our daughter back home together. But day by day, his cold actions only made me ponder, sometimes, when did he change so drastically?

However, the downpour was extremely heavy, making my journey through the rugged highway on the mountainside road to reach the hospital when it was already past evening extremely harder than usual.

The windshield wipers were working tirelessly to make the road view clear to me, but I hated to admit my harrowing anxieties had started to get the best of me.

All those memories from the past seven years I had spent with Theodore, including all the sweet moments we had shared that led me to accept him as the love of my life, especially after how he supported me through those rough moments when I lost my father, my biggest supporter.

We were each other’s chosen mates, and I thought he had only loved me alone for all his life…but now, I knew I was so wrong! Who knew he had concealed his past from me, which included his lost love Vivene, who has now reappeared once again in his life!

But does that mean to Theo, all this time…Was I merely a stand-in for Vivene? Did he ever love me after all?