My Family Left Me on Read So I Disappeared Forever Chapter 04
Ethan came home that evening.
He took off his shoes, picked up the remote, and turned on the television as though everything were normal.
As though a crib hadn’t disappeared from our home.
As though our child hadn’t disappeared with it.
“Are you hungry?” I asked from the kitchen doorway. “I can heat up some soup.”
He glanced at me.
“Your mom leaves, and suddenly you’re acting normal again?”
I didn’t respond. I went into the kitchen and heated up two bowls of chicken noodle soup.
Ethan sat at the dining table, and I took the seat across from
him. The baby’s empty infant seat sat beside the table
between us.
“I want to see my son,” I said.
His spoon paused halfway to his mouth.
“Your mom said you can see him once you’re stable.”
“I only want to see him for a few minutes.”
“Evie.” He set down his spoon. “Can’t you give everyone a break for a couple of days?”
“You put your mother through hell, and now you’re coming
after me.”
“What do you want from us?”
He pulled a document from his bag and placed it beside his bowl.
I looked down.
Divorce papers.
“What is this?”
“Read it yourself.”
I opened the document.
The agreement gave Ethan sole custody of our son and
required me to waive any claim to our marital assets.
His signature was already on the final page.
The date beside his signature was three days earlier.
They had planned everything before taking my child away.
“It was your mother’s idea,” Ethan said, taking another spoonful of soup. “She thinks it’s better to make a clean
break while the baby’s still young. She said the way you are now isn’t healthy for him.”
“She said that?”
“Yes. She said you’re not capable of taking care of a child,
and you’re not fit to be a mother.”
Not fit to be a mother.
The words stabbed into my chest, one by one.
“And you?” I looked at him. “What do you think?”
He didn’t answer.
He lifted the bowl, finished the last of the broth, and carried
it to the sink.
As he passed me, he said the last thing he would say to me
that night.
“Sign it. It’ll be better for everyone.”
The bedroom door closed behind him.
I sat alone at the dining table, the empty infant seat nearby
and the divorce papers open beside me.
The living room was so quiet that I could hear the
refrigerator humming.
Eventually, I stood and walked into the nursery.
When I opened the door, the faint scent of baby formula still
lingered in the room.
The crib was gone, but one of its rails had left a shallow
scratch on the wall.
A tiny sock had been left behind in the dresser drawer.
It was barely longer than my thumb.
I closed my hand around it and opened the Notes app on my
phone.
I typed a few lines, erased them, then tried again.
I kept rewriting them until only a few sentences remained.
[His vaccination record is in the second drawer of the
nightstand. I circled his six–month appointment in red.]
[He can’t fall asleep unless someone pats his back. Don’t pat too fast. Keep the rhythm steady, like a heartbeat.]
[Use the low–lactose formula in the green can. The regular
kind upsets his stomach.]
[He’s afraid of thunder. When it storms, hold him close and
cover his ears.]
I stared at those lines for a long time before adding one
more.
[I’m sorry. I really did try.]
I placed the phone on the nursery windowsill.
The screen remained lit, casting a pale glow over the scratch
on the wall.
I folded the little sock neatly and placed it beside the phone.
Then I left the apartment.
The night air felt warmer than the rooms I had left behind.
As I walked through the apartment complex, the streetlights
stretched my shadow across the pavement.
The convenience store was still open. The clerk was dozing
at the counter, and a stray cat sat outside licking one of its
paws.
When I passed, it looked up at me.
I crouched and gently stroked its head.
It didn’t pull away. It rubbed against my fingers, then lowered its head and continued grooming itself.
I stood and kept walking.
The lock on the rooftop door of the building behind our
complex had been broken for months.
Management had posted three warning notices, but no one
had fixed it.
Wind poured through the stairwell, growing stronger with every floor I climbed.
When I pushed open the rooftop door, the lights of the entire
city spread out before me.
Across the street, a warm yellow light glowed from a
seventh–floor window.
A woman paced beside the window with a baby in her arms,
gently rocking the child to sleep.
I watched her for a long time.
The wind blew my hair across my face, but I didn’t brush it
away.
I slipped off my white canvas sneakers and set them neatly
side by side.
Then I took a receipt from my pocket and wrote a single
sentence on the back.
I had found the pen outside the convenience store. It was
nearly out of ink, so I pressed down hard as I wrote.
[Seventeen pots of hydrangeas. I wanted to count every
blossom for him.]
The light in the seventh–floor window went out.
The woman must have finally gotten her baby to sleep.
The wind was fierce, but I no longer felt cold.
At seven the next morning, Frank Miller, the building
superintendent, went up to inspect the roof during his
morning rounds.
When he opened the door, the first thing he saw was a pair of white canvas sneakers placed neatly near the ledge.
Beside them lay a receipt, one corner fluttering in the wind.
He picked it up and read the message.
His legs nearly gave out.
When he called 911, his voice shook so violently that he could barely form the words.
“Please hurry… Someone fell from the roof…‘