The Free Pass

Chapter 47

Shawn

The day Mallory woke up was pretty crazy.

Doctor Sutton showed up and ran a bunch of cognitive tests to check Mal's brain function. Everything was well within the normal range which was great news. He cleared her to be moved out of the ICU into a regular ward later in the day. Her visitors were given the okay to stop wearing masks since she no longer had any signs of infection.

Mallory's parents spent the morning with her, though she insisted I stay in the seat next to her holding her hand. I didn't mind at all.

My parents visited later, after the Everetts had gone back to the condo to watch Grace. They'd been run ragged. Aaliyah couldn't stay alone and needed to be in school, so one of them would be at home at night while the other stayed in the condo. They were going back and forth between the condo, Pickering, and the hospital constantly.

"You need a break, Shawn," my mom whispered while Mallory napped. "Go home and sleep and take a shower. Spend a little time with your daughter."

I hated that I'd been neglecting Gracie. She was well cared for by people who loved her, but I knew she needed time with her mom or dad. The thing was, Mal was my priority right now since she was sick. In the three and a half days I'd been home, I'd spent almost all of my time in her room. I went home, or to Andrew's hotel before he'd gone back to New York, and took brief naps and showered.

"She'll be upset if she wakes up and I'm not here," I said.

"Your love for her is beautiful," she said.

I looked at my mom. I needed to tell her the truth.

"I just realized that I love her this week."

"What do you mean?" she asked, her expression showing disbelief.

I took a deep breath. "Mallory and I have been having problems since Grace was born. It's a long and complicated story, but the gist of it is that when we got married, she loved me but I wasn't in love with her."

"Shawn!"

"After Grace was born, Mallory said she couldn't stay married to me without our feelings being mutual, so we've basically been living a lie. We've been living together as friends but giving off the impression that we were happily married."

"You can't keep that up forever," my mom said.

"No. Mallory plans to leave eventually, but not until we feel it's the right time. We're together for Gracie."

My mom shook her head. "I've seen you two together. I've seen how you look at her. I'm sorry, but you aren't that good an actor. You love her!"

"I know that now. And I think I've loved her for a while, probably even before we got married. For some reason I was blind to it."

"Maybe you'd told yourself so often that you didn't love her that you believed it."

"Possibly. But none of that matters. The important thing is that I love her now and I'm going to tell her when the time is right. I think it would be too much to spring on her right now, though. I hope her plans change once she knows."

"She's been in love with you a long time?"

"Yeah. She told me right before Grace was born. It freaked me out that she had those feelings for me. That's actually why I was gone the night she went into labor," I said with remorse.

"Why did you keep this from your family?"

"We didn't want everyone to worry. It would be hard if our families knew our marriage was temporary. It would be awkward when we were together," I explained.