Too Late to Love Us

Just because I discussed work with my assistant, my wife wanted a divorce. Sophie looked at me coldly, her voice cutting. “I don’t want you or the kid anymore.” Later, she fell into the arms of a younger man I knew from college. To punish me for an affair I never had, she exploited my trust, leaked my company’s secrets, and left me with nowhere to turn. She even ignored our daughter’s health. Taking advantage of the little girl’s love for her, she locked our three-year-old outside alone, leaving her gravely ill. While Sophie and Noah were living their happily-ever-after, I begged her on my knees to save our daughter. But she only gave me a cold glance before saying, “You cheated first. I stopped wanting either of you a long time ago. You’re the ones who keep coming back. If she dies, that’s not my problem.” I carried my daughter’s cold body through the snowy night, nearly freezing to death by the roadside. Later, Sophie became seriously ill and needed our daughter’s bone marrow. What she didn’t know was that our daughter was dead. And so was I. This time, neither of us wanted her anymore. The day our daughter became critically ill, I called Sophie. I shouldn’t have, but seeing Lily lying so weakly in that hospital bed broke my heart. She kept asking, “Daddy, now that I’m sick, will Mommy come see me?” The phone rang several times before Sophie answered. The breathless pleasure in her voice made my stomach churn. “Hello?” We weren’t even divorced yet, and she already couldn’t wait to climb into another man’s bed. I swallowed my disgust and spoke. “Lily’s sick. She wants to see you.” Sophie just scoffed. “Another sob story to trick me? Ethan, don’t you get tired of this?” “You’re the one who cheated. What could you possibly have to say for yourself now?” “You both owe me this!” I had no desire to argue. Our daughter lay in bed, her breathing faint, her life hanging by a thread. Outside her hospital room, I heard my own voice break. “I’m not lying!” “Something’s really wrong with Lily. Can you please come—” Sophie said nothing. She didn’t even react. The call abruptly ended before I could respond. Everything else I wanted to say caught in my throat, choking me. I was wrong. So terribly wrong. The biggest mistake of my life was trusting Sophie. Once, we had loved each other. The first time I saw her, she stood in the sunlight in a white dress and chased away the boys bullying me. She told me she would protect me. As long as she was around, no one would dare hurt me. She helped me find a teacher. I could smell the faint scent of plums on her, sweet with a hint of tartness. I knew I had little to offer, so I worked myself to the bone in school, hoping to give her a better life. I paid her tuition and even funded her studies abroad. We married the year she graduated. After we married, she began traveling from country to country. During our hardest days, I worked so much I barely slept. That was when she hugged me from behind. Her tears soaked my back as she whispered, “Baby, it hurts to see you like this.” “Let me take over. You can stay home and rest for a while.” I believed her. We’d been married for four years. Why wouldn’t I? But I lost. Completely. Her perfume grew stronger, and she began rushing to answer messages right in front of me. Whenever I asked, she only said, “Oh, it’s just work.” But I’d seen her call the other person “baby.” It wasn’t that I never had doubts. I loved her, so I chose to trust her. Until another night when she stumbled home drunk and fell into my arms. The name on her lips belonged to another man. “Noah…” When she woke the next morning, I asked her about it. She only gave me a mocking look. “He’s just an employee I’m close to. It’s a name. Why are you so petty?” Petty. I was petty. Were those sickeningly sweet messages my fault, too? In the end, I never said it. Because I loved her. But now our daughter lay in my arms, barely clinging to life, and her mother wouldn’t even come look at her. All those beautiful memories of love had become a lie. I thought I would cry. Instead, my mind went blank, as though I’d lost the ability to feel. A sharp pain stabbed through my stomach, but I barely registered it. It felt as though I were dying, too.The next morning, a nurse’s urgent voice woke me. The moment I opened my eyes, I saw our daughter’s deathly pale face. My heart clenched. I nearly tripped in my panic. “I’m sorry—please, how’s my daughter?” “Mr. Bennett, we really can’t delay Lily’s treatment any longer. If we do, her life will be in danger.” The nurse looked worried, but she told me the truth about Lily’s condition. The world went silent. All I could hear was Lily’s increasingly faint breathing. “Daddy…” “Emergency! Bed eight is in acute heart failure! She needs surgery now!” The nurse’s shout and the blaring machines crashed into my ears. I rushed forward, took Lily’s hand, and ran beside her gurney. “Daddy’s here. I’m right here.” “Don’t be scared, sweetheart. You’re just going to sleep. When you wake up, everything will be better.” “Daddy… has Mommy forgiven me?” They wheeled Lily into the operating room. I trembled so badly I didn’t notice the blood pouring from my nose. With no other choice, I called Sophie again. But as soon as the call connected, a man’s mocking voice came through. “Look who’s calling. The ex-husband.” The blood in my veins turned to ice. Still, I forced my emotions down. “Give her the phone. I need to talk to her.” Sophie sounded impatient, as though I were some tedious chore. “What now?” My voice shook before breaking into a shout. “Lily’s really in danger! Can you please save her?” There were two seconds of silence, followed by another derisive laugh. “Ethan, you’re using that excuse again? Do you think I’m that easy to fool?” Noah chimed in beside her, as though this were all a joke. Then his voice turned wounded. “This is ridiculous.” “Sophie, don’t believe him. He cheated on you. Besides, if he hadn’t ruined my hands, I wouldn’t be useless now.” Sophie soothed him gently, not caring that I was still listening. “It’s okay. I’m here. He’ll never hurt you again.” The hospital bustled around me, but all I felt was a terrible cold, as though the air had frozen. I heard myself beg again. “Sophie, I cheated. I stood in the way of your love. I injured his wrists. It was all me. But Lily is innocent.” “All she did was say her teacher was pretty. Sophie, please save her…” Sophie answered with the arrogance of someone who held the whole world in her hands. “Fine. Since you admit you were wrong, get on your knees and apologize to Noah. Then I’ll save her!”I went to Sophie’s office without a word. Noah was still sneering. “See? I told you he wouldn’t admit he was wrong. Men understand men. He’d never go that far, even for his daughter.” But he was wrong. Without saying a word, I knelt outside the office. Employees passing by recognized me and stopped in shock. They gathered nearby, whispering as they watched. Only my former executive assistant tried to disperse the crowd, hoping to preserve the last scraps of my dignity. I looked at her gratefully. Sophie saw it and spoke again, furious. “Ethan, and you still claim you weren’t cheating? You still deny it?” “What kind of boss is that close to his assistant?” “You disgust me!” My eyes remained empty. I didn’t even answer. Panic flickered across her face. In all our years together, I had never treated her so coldly. But Noah caught her hand and added fuel to the fire. “Why do you even care about him, Sophie? He has plenty of people to do that.” Sophie gave me a long look but didn’t argue. She pressed herself against Noah, her curves molded to his body, and I nearly gagged. I shouldn’t have felt anything anymore. Yet the disgust was unbearable. She had accused me of cheating over nothing, while what she did with her so-called employee was far worse. After an hour on my knees, I sank back on my heels and spoke calmly. “Is that enough? I can keep kneeling if you want.” Whatever dignity I’d had as a man was gone. But I didn’t care. Lily was suffering far more than I was. Sophie’s expression changed at the sight of my bloodless face. She knew I had an old leg injury. I’d gotten it fighting a group of men who were harassing her. It ached whenever it rained, and I couldn’t kneel or stay in bed too long. I still remembered her crying in my arms, asking why I’d been so foolish. Promising she would love me forever. So anything could change after all. Suddenly, she stepped forward to help me up, her eyes reddening. My heart gave a hard thump at the sight of her panic. But I avoided her hand and repeated, “Will you save Lily now?” An awkward silence settled over us. Sophie’s face hardened, and she ordered me out, as though that flicker of concern had never existed. I staggered to my feet and nearly fell again. Still, I managed to stand. I looked at her steadily and said one last thing. “I hope you’re happy.” I rushed back to the hospital, but I was too late. I never imagined that I would return to find my daughter curled into a tiny ball. Sweat drenched her face from the pain. When she saw me, she raised a trembling little hand to wipe away my tears. “Daddy…” “It doesn’t hurt.” But how could it not? The doctor said even an adult would struggle to endure that operation. She had suffered so much, and she still couldn’t survive. She struggled to reach my arms. Even in the final moments of her life, she blamed herself. “If I hadn’t said my teacher was pretty, would Mommy love me?” “Would she have stayed with us?” Outside, the snow blew hard enough to blind me. Lily was cold in my arms, so cold it made my heart tremble. I went from one doctor to another, hoping someone could save her. But there were no miracles in this world. Because Lily was dead. And before she died, she was still asking whether her mommy had forgiven her.