You Looked Down on Me Once Now You Look Up (Patricia and Oliver) novel Chapter 789

Patricia was still in the hospital on the second day when Maggie finally showed up.

Maggie and Atticus must have sensed something wasn’t right. Instead of reaching out to Chelsea, they went straight to Marian for answers. Marian let something slip, and just like that, Maggie made her way back to Riverdale from the northwest that same afternoon.

Patricia was lying in bed when she saw her. She blinked in surprise, then called out softly, “Aunt Maggie.”

Oliver got up from his chair, said a quick hello, and left the room so the two could talk privately.

Maggie sat down and took Patricia’s hand, giving her a careful once-over. “How are you feeling?”

Patricia’s reply was gentle. “I’m fine.”

Maggie shook her head. “You and Chelsea are both so stubborn. If I hadn’t asked Marian, I wouldn’t have known you two had such a bad fight that you ended up here. If something had really happened…” She stopped herself. There were some things she just couldn’t bring herself to say out loud. She glanced at Patricia’s belly and went on, “If anything happened, think about how crushed your family would be.”

Patricia’s lips trembled as she tried to hold it together. “I never wanted any of this.” The second she saw Maggie, everything fell apart. Tears spilled down her cheeks, streaming faster than she could wipe them away.

“Oh, sweetheart, did you get your feelings hurt? Why are you crying now?” Maggie reached for the tissues on the nightstand and started gently dabbing her tears away, her voice soft and soothing. She kept comforting her, trying to calm her down.

When the conversation shifted to her issues with Oliver, Maggie’s face grew serious. The worry in her eyes was impossible to miss. She’d lived long enough to know how these things worked. No man was perfect. If he was great in some ways, he was probably lacking somewhere else. That was just life. Nobody had it all. You picked what mattered most and let go of the rest.

Oliver had money, came from a good family, and looked like he’d stepped out of a magazine. He was generous, too. But his personality? That was where the trouble started. Still, if you spent all your time focusing on someone’s bad side, things would fall apart sooner or later. At first, marriage looked perfect. Over time, though, the cracks started to show.

Patricia sniffled, wiping her eyes. “Can you make him go?”

The question caught Maggie off guard. This wasn’t just some argument. Things were much worse than she thought. “I’ll try to talk to him, okay?”

After Patricia finally drifted off to sleep, Maggie slipped out quietly. In the sitting room, Oliver was sprawled in an armchair, eyes shut, looking completely exhausted. The lines on his face were deep, his whole body heavy with fatigue.

Marian was moving around quietly, setting a food container on the side table. She looked up when she saw Maggie and whispered, “Mr. Padilla hasn’t slept in two days. He must be completely worn out.”

“Has he been here looking after her the whole time?”