Visiting the other side of the city

The next day, after asking a trusted neighbor to watch the children for two hours, Rowan drove to Nashville General Hospital to see Delaney.

She was sitting up in bed when he came in. Her left arm was in a cast, a bruise marked her cheekbone, her hair was carelessly tied back, making her look younger and more dejected than he remembered. For a long moment, she avoided his gaze.

Rowan was standing at the foot of the bed.

“The children are alive,”  he said, and the harshness of his own voice surprised even himself.

Delaney closed his eyes briefly.  “I know.”

“What happened?”

Her answer came slowly, as if she had to extract each fragment with a lingering sense of shame. She had gone out with a man she was seeing, thinking she would only be gone for a few hours, she explained. She had felt overwhelmed, exhausted, desperate to feel human again, and no longer like a machine driven by work, children, and loneliness. Then there had been the alcohol, an argument in the car, an accident, complete darkness, and then nothing until she woke up in the hospital.

When Rowan said,  “You left a six-year-old and a three-year-old alone, almost without food,”  there was nothing dramatic in his tone. That’s what made his words all the more harsh.

Tears were streaming down Delaney’s face, but he didn’t approach.

“I know,”  she murmured.  “I know what I did.”

“Micah thought his sister might not make it through the night.”

Delaney covered his mouth with his good hand and leaned forward.

Rowan allowed a long silence to settle before speaking again.  “I request sole provisional custody.”

She looked up, broken and exhausted.  “Are you taking them from me forever?”

He shook his head once.  “I’m protecting them. What happens next depends on what you do.”

To her credit, she didn’t argue. She didn’t accuse. She didn’t look for easy excuses. She simply asked, after another long silence:  “How are they?”

“Elsie is recovering. Micah saved her by calling me.”

That sentence seemed to shatter Delaney’s last defenses. She wept silently, without ostentation, and Rowan understood then that remorse was real, even when it came too late to prevent harm.

Before leaving, she said,  “I’m starting therapy. I’ve already asked.”

He placed a hand on the doorframe.  “Good. Continue.”