Morphine

Chapter Sixty Two

Mercedes Catherine cried heavily.

Michael the Fourth held her. "She didn't mean it. She was just sad."

"She hates me!"

"Of course not. She's just sad right now."

"Because we made her sad!"

He couldn't refute that.

M-

Michael the Third wasn't used to dealing with tears. Not many people cried in his profession or personal life. But his wife was crying her eyes out right now.

So he had to buck up and soothe her. He just didn't know how...

Jeanette went through actual full boxes of tissue, crying. "I'm the worst mother-in-law ever!"

Michael petted her hair, still speechless.

"She hates me! And now I'm barred from our grandchildren!"

"Malcolm will not bar us from our kin." Was all he had.

"We had his wife committed! He probably hates us, too!"

Michael figured he felt some kind of way because for as long as Marceline Anne had been hospitalized, Malcolm had been a ghost. "No."

"They hate us and we deserve it!"

"Jeanette. Stop. You're going to make yourself sick."

She shuddered.

He tightened his arms around her and stopped trying to fix everything. He just held her.

M-

Marcus Donald found his father in his office, drinking. "Dad!"

Marcus looked up blearily. "Want a drink?"

"Dad, how many have you had?"

Marcus poured the last two fingers of Johnny Walker into his tumbler. "This was full." He mock-toasted his son and knocked the whiskey back.

Marcus Donald took the bottle. "Dad, do you really think getting blackout drunk is going to make her forgive us?"

"But it's so much-" hiccup! "Fun!"

Marcus Donald sighed. "We have to earn her forgiveness. Before she-..."

"Dies?" Marcus let out a bitter laugh. "First I bury your mother and now your sister."

Marcus Donald threw the bottle. It shattered upon impact. "She's not dead yet!"

Marcus watched him pace.

"She can't-! I won't let-! She-!" He couldn't complete a thought.

Marcus let him go until he stopped moving. Then he put a new decanter on his desk along with another tumbler.

Marcus Donald collapsed into a chair. Maybe getting blackout drunk wouldn't earn her forgiveness but it was preferable to this.

M-

Malcolm watched his wife as they got in the bed. They got in the middle and he pulled her into his arms. "How do you feel?"

Marceline Anne rubbed her nose. "It doesn't matter how I feel. It only matters what's right for the twins. And you."

He buried his right arm beneath her and used his left thumb to stroke her cheek. "I don't like my mom crying."

"It sucked to hear."

"Do you really think she thinks you trapped me?"

"Don't you? Your life was perfect before me. Now you're fighting and getting suspended. You're having kids. I ruined your life." Her eyes lowered.

"Dove, you did not ruin my life." He raised her chin. "You made me feel alive. You are the greatest thing to ever happen to me."

She struggled to swallow. "Really?"

"Yes."

She buried her face in his throat, her hot tears scorching his skin. I have to tell him. Tomorrow. Before I go to the hospital. I have to tell him I love him.