Rise of the Formidable Ex-wife (Lucia and Alex) novel Chapter 310

Chapter 310

Chapter 310

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Dr. Peters looked at the file in his hands the way people look at something when they need a moment before saying what it contains, and the family read that look with the understanding of people who had been waiting three hours and were about to learn the waiting had been for something real.

“Margaret has been diagnosed with stage four lung cancer,” he said.

The words landed in the corridor and everything in it went still.

“The scans show significant spread,” the doctor continued, his voice low and careful, someone who had delivered this kind of news before and hadn’t grown careless with it. “To the lymph nodes and other areas of the chest. The bleeding she experienced today is consistent with the disease progressing. We believe she has been symptomatic for some time, and that the symptoms weren’t recognized or reported as concerning enough to trigger investigation.”

Marie heard each sentence the way you hear things too large to fully absorb, the mind taking in the individual words without yet building them into the thing they were meant to mean.

Stage four.

“Is she going to die?” Josh Junior said, his voice stripped down to just the question.

“Stage four lung cancer is not considered curable,” Dr. Peters said. “What we can offer is treatment to slow the progression and manage her symptoms. Chemotherapy alongside supportive care can extend her life and improve its quality during that time.” He paused. “I want to be honest. We are not talking about eliminating the disease. We are talking about giving her more time.”

“How much time?” David asked, the question everyone had been holding, said because someone needed to say it.

Dr. Peters looked at the file again. “With treatment, we estimate three to four months. Possibly longer. It’s difficult to be precise, and I don’t want to give you a number as if it were certain, because these things vary depending on how the patient responds.” He closed the file. “Without treatment, considerably shorter.”

Claire pressed her hand over her mouth. Josh Senior stood with his eyes closed, head tilted slightly, hands at his sides, absorbing a blow he had no defense for.

“Can we see her?” Marie said. “Can I see my daughter?”

“Margaret is still unconscious,” the doctor said. “We’re monitoring her closely and expect her to wake within the next several hours. When she does, we’d like to speak with her about her options before anything is decided about treatment.” He looked at Marie. “You can see her when she wakes. I’ll make sure you’re notified the moment that happens.”

He said a few more things, practical details about what came next, who would be in contact with whom. Marie caught some of it and missed the rest. The only thing that had truly landed sat heavy in her chest.

Her daughter, born twenty nine years ago, who had once sat on the bottom step of a basement Marie herself had put her in, who had grown into a woman capable of terrible choices and had spent the last year trying to become someone worth forgiving, who had a letter from her father under her pillow that she hadn’t found

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Chapter 310

the strength to answer yet, and now might not have the time to

The doctor went back through the ward doors. The family stood where he’d left them. Nobody spoke for a long time.

Marie turned.

Across the corridor, set back between two other doors, sat a small chapel, the kind hospitals keep for mostly this kind of moment, plain and small, its door dightly open, warm light spilling through the gap

She walked toward it without telling anyone.

The door was lighter than she expected. Inside, six short pews faced a simple altar, candles burning in a stand off to the side, the air smelling of old wood and something that wasn’t quite incense

She went to the front pew and knelt instead of sitting, gripping the back of the pew ahead of her looking at the candles.

“Please,” she said, barely above a breath.

“Please.” Her hands tightened on the wood. “I need more time with her. I know I haven’t earned it. I know what kind of mother I was. All the years I let pass, all the times I looked away, all the ways I failed her.” The tears came freely now, and she didn’t try to stop them. “I’m asking anyway. Let me fix something. Let me give her back some piece of what she should have had.” Her voice broke. “I’m sorry. I was a bad mother. I should have loved her better, seen her properly, protected her from everything instead of being part of what she needed protecting from.” She wept against the pew. “Please. Give me more time.”

A hand landed on her shoulder.

Josh Senior had followed her in, standing beside the pew, unable to speak, his own face wet, looking at the altar like a man who had run out of every position he’d ever used to keep himself upright. He didn’t kneel. He simply stood beside his wife, hand on her shoulder, saying something to whatever he was speaking to that wasn’t meant to be heard.

Behind them, through the open chapel door, the rest of the family had gathered.

Josh Junior stayed at the threshold, leaning against the frame, arms crossed, chin down, jaw working as he watched his parents at the front of the chapel.

Claire wasn’t at the door. She was in the corridor, in David’s arms, face pressed against his chest, and he held her without saying anything, because there was nothing to say.

“]

was a bad sister,” she said into his coat. “She is dying, and I was a bad sister.”

David held her tighter.

She said it once more, the repetition carrying everything that had sat in her for months and had never before been said in exactly those words.

The chapel light spilled through the open door. The candles burned.

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Chapter 310

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On the other side of the corridor doors, Margaret lay in a hospital bed, still and unconscious, not knowing yet that the thing in her chest had a name and a number attached to it, not knowing her family had spent three hours in a waiting room and were now standing in a chapel with wet faces, holding each other up.

She slept the deep, unaware sleep of someone who had collapsed and been caught, kept for now in the only mercy available to her, which was simply not knowing yet.

The corridor was quiet. The candles kept burning.

The family held each other in the only way left to them, which wasn’t enough, and was everything they had.

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