I reached the hospital just as the first gray light of dawn crept across the sky. The operating room lights had long since gone dark.
My mother-in-law lay beneath a stark white sheet, the wound on her chest not even sutured shut. The cold seeped through the fabric when I touched her, snuffing out my last shred of hope.
She'd been left there alone in a corner. Not a single person had come to check on her. And Clay hadn't shown his face once.
I swallowed the pain in my chest and began making arrangements, but my phone kept buzzing with messages from Evangeline. Every single one was a photo or video of her and Clay together.
Him holding her hand at the mall. Buying her expensive jewelry. Taking her to upscale restaurants. In every shot, his smile was soft and warm, a completely different man from the one who screamed at me like I was nothing.
The caption she'd attached was even worse: "Dr. Farley says he's going to take good care of me from now on. The people who dragged him down aren't worth a second glance."
I stared at those images until my fingertips turned white from gripping the phone. I didn't reply. I just threw myself into preparing the funeral.