The Unwanted Wife and Her Secret Twins (Mia and Kyle) novel Chapter 501

Mia's POV

We took the elevator back up. Madison pressed the button. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

The doors opened.

The hallway was quiet. It was always quiet on this floor. The ICU had a particular quality of silence—not empty, but muffled. Held. Like the building itself was holding its breath.

I pushed the door open.

Alexander was still standing by the bed. Still talking. His voice had gone hoarse now, scratchy at the edges, but he hadn't stopped.

"—and then the dragon said, 'I'm not scary, I'm just misunderstood,' and the princess said, 'Well, you should work on your communication skills,' and the dragon said—"

He stopped when he saw us.

"Madison, you're back. I'm telling Daddy about the dragon and the princess. Do you want to help? You can be the princess voice. I'm doing the dragon voice."

Madison walked to the sofa. Sat down. Pulled Eleanor against her chest.

"Maybe later," she said.

"Okay." Alexander turned back to Kyle. "Madison says maybe later. She's shy. But she'll do the princess voice eventually. She's really good at it. She makes her voice all fancy and stuff."

I sat down in the chair next to the bed. The chair I'd been sitting in for three days. The cushion had molded to the shape of my body. There was a coffee stain on the armrest from the second night, when my hand had shaken and I'd spilled.

Kyle's hand was on top of the blanket.

I looked at it. At the IV needle taped to the back, at the slight bruising around the insertion site, at the familiar shape of his fingers.

His hand looked smaller somehow. Or maybe it was the same size and I'd just never noticed how vulnerable a hand could look when it wasn't doing anything. Wasn't holding anything. Wasn't reaching for anything.

"—and then the dragon learned to bake cookies," Alexander was saying, "because everyone likes cookies, even people who are scared of dragons, so if you give them cookies they stop being scared and start being your friend. That's the moral of the story. Cookies equal friendship. I made that up myself. Pretty good, right?"

The monitors beeped.

The ventilator hissed.

Outside, the gray sky was getting darker. Not sunset—too early for that. Just clouds. More clouds rolling in from somewhere, stacking on top of each other, turning the afternoon into something that looked more like evening.

The children slept on the pull-out. All three of them, arranged like sardines in a can. Alexander on the left, Madison in the middle, Ethan on the right. They'd figured out this configuration themselves, through trial and error. Alexander moved too much in his sleep. Ethan needed to be near the edge in case he had to use the bathroom. Madison needed to be between them because that's where she felt safest.

The room had accumulated things. A plastic bag from the hospital gift shop, filled with snacks that no one was really eating.

An hour went by and then another.

The clock said 2 AM.

The room was dark except for the glow of the monitors and the thin strip of light coming from under the bathroom door. I'd left that light on for the children. In case they woke up. In case they needed to find their way.

I was half-asleep when I heard it.

"Mama."

The voice was small. Urgent. Not scared—something else.

I didn't open my eyes. "Go back to sleep, baby."

"Mama." A hand on my arm. Shaking. "Mama, wake up."

"Mm."

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify