Daddy, I Don't Want You Anymore

My husband, Colin Foster, handed the completed registration form back through the window. Just as the nurse reached for it, I pressed my hand over the corner of the page. "Your own daughter is still upstairs fighting for her life. Colin, you're coming with me. Now." Greta Baldwin, his first love, moved closer to him. "Rachel, weren't you supposed to be away on business until Friday?" Colin looked up at me. "Hazel still isn't out? What did the doctor say? Who's with her now?" "Her teacher is with Hazel." I looked at the boy in his arms. "Your daughter is upstairs fighting for her life, and you're down here holding someone else's child while he calls you Dad." He glanced toward the elevator, then looked away. "I thought they'd already given her the medication. Greta is fighting for custody, and Owen's been emotionally unstable. I needed to help her deal with this first." Owen Baldwin's name came over the intercom. Colin immediately started toward the exam room with him in his arms. I stepped in front of him. "Hazel needs you. Come upstairs with me. Owen has his mother." Owen tightened his arms around Colin's neck. "Dad, will the X-ray hurt?" "No. Dad will stay with you." Colin patted his back and tried to hand him to Greta, but the boy only clung tighter. My phone rang just then. A nurse told me Hazel was stable for the moment and asked me to come back upstairs. Colin leaned closer to listen. Relief crossed his face, and he settled Owen more securely in his arms. "The exam room is right there. I'll just go in with him for a minute. You go upstairs. Hazel will feel safe with you around." I looked at him. "She's been asking for you the entire time." "I know. Tell her I'll be there soon." He glanced down at the registration form and added, "Owen only calls me that way because he needs someone to rely on. Do you really think I'd abandon my own daughter?" The nurse urged me to come back. When I turned away, Colin was still standing outside the exam room with Owen in his arms. Back in Hazel's room, her teacher handed me her backpack. She told me Hazel had spent the whole ride asking why her father still hadn't come. Even while they were loading her into the ambulance, Hazel had clutched her teacher's sleeve and asked whether she might have called the wrong number. I sat beside the bed. The first thing Hazel did was look past me toward the door. "Where's Dad?" "He's still downstairs." "Does he know I'm here?" She was still struggling to speak. I nodded and adjusted her pillow. In depression, she only asked me to leave the door slightly open in case Dad came and couldn't find her. I promised I would. When a nurse came in to check on her, Hazel looked toward the doorway again, then held out her hand once she realized who it was. I stood beside the bed, listening as the nurse explained what to watch for overnight and recording everything on my phone. When Hazel heard she'd be staying in the hospital, she asked if Dad could stay too. All I could tell her was that I would be there with her tonight. In the side pocket of her backpack was a card she'd drawn herself, with Colin's phone number written on it. Before I left on my business trip, he'd put it there himself and told Hazel that he would always be there for her. I took the card out and slipped it into my own bag. I opened the school's parent portal, changed the primary emergency contact back to myself, and messaged her teacher to say I'd handle Hazel's drop-offs and pickups from now on. A notification appeared on the screen. School Portal: Primary contact number updated. I set my phone aside and held the hand Hazel had left outside the blanket. Several times, footsteps paused in the hallway, and each time her eyes opened. I told her it was only a nurse making rounds. She would close her eyes again, but her grip on my hand never loosened. After she fell asleep, I found my attorney, Anna Ellis's number. Colin still hadn't come upstairs, and I didn't call him again. I texted Anna what had happened that night, then ended with one question. Rachel: Can you have the divorce papers ready today?