Ex-Husband’s Regret by Evelyn M.M

Sorry for your loss

“I need to go, could you please stay with Noah? I don’t know how long I’ll be there” I say absent mindedly as I pick up my handbag.

“Sure. I’ll be there as soon as I can get my mother to come baby sit him” Rowan responds but it is drowned by the ringing in my ears.

Nothing much registers as I say goodbye to my son and leave. I get inside my car and begin to drive to the hospital. My mind completely lost in memory.

Growing up, you could say that I was emotional neglected. I was the child that none of my parents cared that much about. Father’s favorite was my older sister, Emma. He used to call her his baby girl. His princess. Mother’s favorite was my older brother Travis. He was her handsome boy. I was no one favorite. I was just Ava.

I always felt unwanted. Unwelcomed. Not only with my parents but also with my siblings. No matter what I tried to do, good grades, sports, school clubs. I always remained in the sidelines. I always felt like a stranger looking in. Never part of the big happy family.

After what happened nine years ago, the little relationship I had with my family became none existence. Travis rarely talked to me and he and father would even go to great lengths to downright snub me. Mother wasn’t much different. She only talked to me or called when she had something important to tell me. With my sister that was a completely different case. We haven’t seen or talked to each other in nine years. The last words she told me was that I was dead to her. That she no longer had a sister.

Now here I am. Driving to the hospital because father has been shot and all I feel is numb. Despite everything that has happened. Shouldn’t I be feeling something more? Maybe sadness?

What are you supposed to feel when you’re told that the father who shunned you all your life is lying in bed with a bullet wound? How am I supposed to react? And is it weird that I feel nothing?

of my childhood and even part of my adulthood. The pain and

my husband and in laws. The only one who accepts me and loves me

get to the hospital. We had one main big hospital in this town and I just knew that’s where

ruffles my hair. I take a deep breath and

brought in for a gunshot wound”

“Any relation?” she asks.

“He’s my father”

her head. “Give me a minute.” She pauses while she types on her computer. “Right, he is in the ER, getting prepped for surgery. Just go straight ahead,

“Thanks”

instruction. My heart beating with every step I

go back to his

I may not have a relationship but he’s loving towards Noah and that’s all I can ever ask

enter. I immediately spot mother and Travis on the waiting chair. I school my features and

say as a

are dry but you can still see how much this is affecting him. He was trying to

to her. “What happened and how

question brings on

twice on his way back from the store, right outside our house. I called the ambulance immediately and we brought him here. The doctors

to comfort her. To hug her, but I don’t think my touch

know. He’ll be

doesn’t say anything. Just continues

in a hospital gown and is lying on a hospital bed. Travis and mother