After His Heart Transplant My Husband Forgot His Daughter Chapter 06
After the discharge paperwork was done, I took Elodie home one last time.
Two suitcases held everything we owned.
Standing in the middle of the living room, I saw the game console Grady had bought for Finn still sitting by the TV, Renata’s shawl draped over the arm of the sofa, and a drawing Finn had made of a family of four stuck to the refrigerator door.
In the picture, neither Elodie nor I existed.
The truth was, this home hadn’t belonged to us for a long time.
Elodie went into her room and stood staring at her art table, already cleared bare. With her uninjured left hand, she picked up a brush, then reflexively tried to steady it with her bandaged right hand.
The brush clattered to the floor.
She crouched to pick it up, fumbling several times before she gave up. Tears slid down her cheeks, silent and steady.
I dropped to my knees and pulled her into my arms.
“It’s okay. I know.”
She clutched my shirt, her whole body shaking.
“You don’t have to say a word. I understand. We’ll find a new way.”
When I emptied the last drawer, I found the old tablet.
Inside were the fifty-seven recordings Elodie had made for the Dad Before the Surgery.
I backed them all up to the cloud, then set the tablet in the center of the coffee table, screen up, open to the list of voice memos.
It was the last thing I had to say to Grady.
At eleven that night, we boarded a flight to San Diego.
It was the last thing I had to say to Grady.
At eleven that night, we boarded a flight to San Diego.
At the security gate, Elodie looked back once, just once. Then she buried her face in my shoulder and didn’t lift it again.
At one in the morning, our flight landed. A colleague from my new dispatch center was waiting at the exit to pick us up.
Holding Elodie, I finally let myself breathe.
“We’re safe now.”
She nodded lightly in my arms.
At that same moment, Grady was walking into an empty house.
He saw the old tablet on the coffee table and lunged for it.
There were more than fifty recordings in the voice memos.
He tapped the first one.