Love in the Eye of the Storm

Chapter 19

Madeline wasn't gone. She couldn't be. They couldn't be talking about a funeral. She was still here.

I stumbled toward her, desperate to touch her, just to feel her warmth again, to prove she was still alive.

But before I could even reach her, Tanya snatched a glass from the table and hurled it at me. It shattered against my forehead, the sharp sting barely registering. Blood ran down my face, but I didn't care. All I could see was Madeline.

"Don't you dare touch her!" Tanya screamed, her voice raw with grief. "Get the hell away from her!"

Madeline's skin was cold.

Her face, too pale. Lifeless. Her chin was stained with blood, but no amount of mess could hide the stillness that had settled over her body.

She looked like a doll. A fragile, broken doll that someone had drained the soul out of.

"How the hell did she bleed this much? Tanya, what happened?! What did you do to her? Give her back to me!" My voice cracked as I shouted, wild with panic.

"What I did to her?" Tanya laughed, a sharp, bitter sound that broke halfway through with a sob. She looked at me like I was something rotten. "You've got a lot of nerve, Alexander. You think I did this?"

She took a step toward me, eyes blazing. "You destroyed her. You and that snake, Chelsea. You betrayed her over and over. And now look, she's gone. Dead. And you don't even deserve to look at her."

"No!" I shouted, shaking my head like that could erase the words. "You're lying! Madeline can't be dead!"

I would've let Tanya throw a hundred more glasses, beat me to a pulp right there, if it meant she'd stop cursing Madeline with that word.

Dead.

I couldn't believe it. I refused to believe it.

Tanya's voice cracked through her sobs. "The doctors said… she might've lasted a few more days. But she went early. She went fast. Because of you. Because of Chelsea!"

Her words hit harder than any glass ever could. I felt like the floor had disappeared under me.

Chelsea?

Before I could even ask what she meant, Tanya shoved Madeline's phone in my face.

There was a video playing.

It was from Chelsea.

In the footage, someone had dug up Daniel's grave. His urn, his ashes, were dumped into a raging river. The camera didn't flinch. It zoomed in on the broken pieces of what used to be his final resting place.

When the screen went dark, I just stood there. Frozen.

No. No, no, no.

Nobody knew better than I did how much Daniel meant to Madeline.

Chelsea had once told me she hadn't meant to disturb his grave, she claimed she was planting peach trees nearby. She made herself sound sweet, innocent. I believed her. God help me, I believed her.

I never imagined she could be this cruel. This calculating.

She sent that video to Madeline. On purpose.

Why? What kind of person does that?

I looked at the little wooden box Madeline kept on the table, where she believed Daniel's ashes were safe. Knowing it had been a lie… that the real ashes were gone…

It must've destroyed her.

It killed her.

Madeline didn't die because of her illness. She died because of Chelsea.

Because I was too blind to see what kind of person she really was.

I had been running around trying to save Chelsea from the edge of a rooftop while my wife was breaking, dying, alone.

And I wasn't even there to say goodbye.

"Madeline…" I whispered, my knees buckling, staring at her chest that no longer moved.

Grief cracked me open from the inside. My hands shook as I reached out, just to hold her one last time.

But Tanya kicked my hand away.

"Don't touch her! Don't you dare lay a single finger on her!" she hissed through gritted teeth. "Madeline didn't want you near her. Those were her last wishes. She didn't want you at her funeral. Didn't want your name anywhere near her grave."

Her voice cracked. "Do you really want to make her soul restless? Is that what you want, Alexander?"

I shook my head slowly, blinded by tears.

No. I didn't want that.

I wanted her to be at peace.

Even if it meant I'd never hold her again.

Even if it meant she would never forgive me.

Tanya and Ms. Martha from the orphanage handled all the funeral arrangements. I wanted, no, I needed, to be there. But the morning of the service, a lawyer showed up at my door with her will.

The first request, clear as day: I was not allowed to attend her funeral. My name would not be engraved on her headstone. Not even a mention.

Even though I never signed the divorce papers, in her heart… I wasn't her husband anymore.

The lawyer handed me a small USB drive.

"This," he said, "is what she left for you."