I walked out of that hospital and I kept walking. Got on a bus. Ended up three states away. Told myself I’d get my life together and come back for her. Told myself the hospital would take care of her. Told myself she was better off without a broken mother who couldn’t even afford her medicine.
I was a coward. A monster. The worst kind of mother.
I got a job waitressing in a diner. Saved every penny. Went to therapy. Slowly put myself back together piece by broken piece. And every single night, I cried myself to sleep thinking about my little girl alone in that hospital bed.
Last week, I finally found the courage to go back. I called the hospital first. Expected them to tell me Lily had died. Expected them to tell me she’d been put in foster care. Expected the worst.
Instead, the nurse said something that stopped my heart.
“Lily is doing much better. She’s in remission. And she has a visitor who comes every single day. A man named Thomas. He’s been with her for seven months.”
A man. A stranger. Had been visiting my daughter every day for seven months.
I drove to the hospital in a rental car. My hands were shaking so badly I could barely grip the steering wheel. What would Lily say when she saw me? Would she even remember me? Would she hate me?
I deserved her hate. I deserved worse.
When I got to the pediatric floor, I asked the nurse which room was Lily’s. She looked at me suspiciously. “And you are?”
The nurse’s face changed. I saw the judgment. The anger. The disgust. She knew. Everyone here knew that I’d abandoned my sick child.
“Room 412. But there’s someone with her right now.”
I walked down the hallway on shaking legs. When I got to room 412, I stopped outside the door. It was slightly open. And I heard something I hadn’t heard in eight months.
My daughter laughing.
Lily was laughing. This beautiful, genuine, joyful sound. I peeked through the crack in the door and what I saw made me fall apart completely.
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