Oliver slammed the box shut. His voice came out razor-sharp, vicious.
“Shirley, you've really outdone yourself. You won't even keep what your own daughter made for you?”
I kept my eyes closed.
“No need.”
His chest heaved, as if those two words had finally cut deep enough to draw blood.
“Fine. Fine! This is how you treat our daughter!”
“Since that's how it is, don't bother showing up for Phoebe's dance rehearsal tomorrow. Nanette will be there for her.”
He stared at me, waiting for me to crumble, to lash out, to beg him with red-rimmed eyes the way I always used to, pleading with him not to give my place away.
But all I said was,
“Fine.”
The anger on Oliver's face froze solid.
Right on cue, his phone rang. Nanette's name lit up the screen. Her voice came through in broken sobs.
“Oliver, did I upset Shirley again?”
Oliver looked at me, silent for a few seconds, then turned and walked toward the door.
“No. She's just being unreasonable.”
After the door closed, the room went quiet. A nurse came in with reddened eyes and started redressing my wounds.
I looked at the freshly opened glass medicine bottle sitting on the tray and said softly：
“Could you pull the curtain? The light's too harsh.”
The moment the nurse turned around, I grabbed the bottle and smashed it against the bed rail.
Glass exploded with a sound sharp enough to split eardrums.
By the time the nurse screamed and spun back, I had already picked up the largest shard and pressed it to the side of my throat.
This time, I didn't hesitate.
Every drop of color drained from Oliver's face. He seized my hand. The glass shard dragged across my palm as he wrenched it away, and blood ran down through the gaps between his fingers.
“Shirley! Do you have to die right in front of me before you're satisfied?!”
He pinned me down so hard I couldn't move.
The nurse was shouting for help. A doctor burst in with a crash cart. The room dissolved into chaos.
I looked into Oliver's bloodshot eyes and felt nothing but the absurdity of it all.
He had already chosen Nanette. What was the point of playing the devoted husband now?
When I woke again, it was already the next afternoon.
Oliver wasn't in the room. Only Phoebe stood beside the bed.
She wore a pink dance dress, her hair done up in two little buns, a registration form clutched in her hand.
The moment she saw my eyes open, she rushed over, her small face scrunched up, her voice a petulant whine.
“Mom, can you please stop staying in the hospital?”
I blinked, caught off guard. She pulled the form closer to her chest, her voice turning even more aggrieved：
“The rehearsal for the parent-child dance is tomorrow. The teacher said a mom has to be there.”
“But you keep lying around in the hospital, and Dad won't come home, and Aunt Nanette cried all night.”
“Everyone's unhappy because of you. You're going to ruin my dance too.”
I looked at this little girl who carried the same blood in her veins as mine, and still, pathetically, tried to tell myself that maybe she was just scared.
After all, she had watched the doctors draw blood from me that night with her own eyes.
My voice was so hoarse it barely came out.
“Phoebe, that night when they took Mommy's blood, were you scared?”
Phoebe's eyes reddened slightly.
“Yes.”
Something stirred faintly in my chest.
Then, a second later, she lowered her head and fidgeted with the hem of her skirt.
“All the nurses were running around, and Daddy was really scary.”
“Aunt Nanette kept holding Daddy's hand. She was hurting so bad she couldn't even cry.”
“Mommy, you're a grownup. Can't you just let her have it?”
I stared at her, frozen. Tears hit the back of my hand before I even realized I was crying.
So in my daughter's heart, no amount of suffering I endured could compare to a single whimper from Nanette.
Phoebe held the registration form out to me.
“Aunt Nanette said she could take your place and dance with me. She said you're not well enough, and you'd only hold me back if you came.”
