The elevator doors opened and there he was, William Sterling, my father. He didn’t rush, just walked, and that’s what made him even more intimidating. Everything that he had built over the years was based on the principle that real power never needs to rush, and the moment my husband Garrett laid eyes on him, I could see he was terrified.
My father didn’t yell, not at all. He just stared at Garrett long enough before he asked him how could he possibly not know that his son was dying. Garrett was totally confused and started explaining how the battery on his phone was dead, but both my father and I could see his phone glowing in his hand. I could not look at him. I was sitting on the floor outside of Ethan’s room completely empty because my five-year-old boy was gone and my hands were shaking from trying to save him. It was when my father put his arms around me and hugged me tight that I completely fell apart. I couldn’t stop crying over the fact that my son died whispering his father’s name till the very end.
When Garrett asked to see Ethan, I told him no, and then I showed my father that I called Garrett eighteen times while my son was dying and asking to see his dad, but he didn’t answer any of it.
“You are finished,” my father told Garrett, who was then dragged out of the hospital by the security.
However, the nightmare was far from over. Before the sun even rose, I received a message from an unknown number. I thought it was a distant relative offering condolences for my loss, but that wasn’t the case. Instead, I received a picture of this Melissa woman fast asleep in some fancy hotel bed with Garrett’s wedding ring sitting right next to her on the nightstand. However, what really made my blood run cold was the thing that lay next to the ring: a prescription bottle with Ethan’s name written on it. Another text followed after this one: Ask your husband why your son’s inhaler was empty.
By sunrise, we had moved from a tragic medical situation to a full blown crime scene investigation. Dad didn’t waste any time at all trying to get hold of security footage, pharmacy records, and hotel logs.
It didn’t take long for the truth to come out, and it was disgusting. Melissa was not the puppeteer behind all of this. She was merely doing the bidding of Vanessa Hale, a woman whom my father had ruined years back after catching her up for financial fraud. Vanessa had planned her revenge for many years, and she had gotten Melissa to drug and distract Garrett so that she could do what she wanted.
What scares me the most about all of this is that Vanessa had impersonated a hospital volunteer in order to gain access to Ethan’s room. I can remember every detail about her. Her smile was warm, she had brought Ethan a stuffed dinosaur, and I even stood there and thanked her for being kind. Then, later on, Garrett found a voice recorder inside of Melissa’s belongings, and he gave it to the police. On it was Melissa crying that taking it too far to a child was too much. Vanessa was completely heartless: “He’s a Sterling.”
That night, for the first time, I returned to the house without my son. It was around midnight when I heard some noise in the corridor, and then the door to the bedroom started opening. There was Vanessa Hale in front of me, smiling at me.
When I asked what she had done to my child, she replied quite calmly, “Your baby boy was not supposed to die so quickly.” Just before she managed to do something more, undercover cops stormed the room and grabbed her. However, when they were taking her away, she looked at me one final time and told me to talk to my father about the bank account in Ethan’s name.
Of course I confronted my father. I asked him what account Vanessa was talking about, and then he told me he set up a secret trust fund for my late son before he passed away because he wanted to protect him. When I asked whom he was protecting him from, my dad said, “From Garrett.” But why? I demanded to known, and that’s when I learned that my husband was in huge gambling debt. He had this addiction and it lasted for years. My father had learned of it just recently but kept it a secret from me for whatever reason. Apparently, he wanted to keep me out of it and handle the situation himself.
However, Vanessa wasn’t alone in this. There was someone within the hospital who had assisted her in doing so, and the person destroyed the last bits of our family. It was none other than Andrew Vale, who happened to be Garrett’s elder brother, Ethan’s uncle, and a very renowned pediatric cardiologist. According to the records maintained by the hospital, Andrew accessed Ethan’s file within an hour of my son’s health turning for the worse. He was seen at the airport attempting to leave town. During questioning, he tried to claim he never meant for Ethan to actually die, but he was a doctor; he knew exactly how dangerous his actions were.
Everyone involved in my son’s death got convicted at the end. Garrett cooperated with the police and gave away all his assets in our newly established foundation named in honor of Ethan without even once requesting my forgiveness. He stood all alone amidst the rains during the funeral services..
I was clearing up Ethan’s room after the services when I came across a tiny blue box, which was hidden deep underneath his bed. It contained a crayon sketch of both of us standing under a huge yellow sun. The writing on the backside read: “Mommy, don’t be sad forever. I want you to smile when I am in heaven. Grandpa says love is more than goodbye.” I don’t even need to tell you how much it made me cry.
One year later, my father opened the Ethan Vale Children’s Wing in the hospital for assisting poor families in getting their treatment. Two years later, I adopted a four-year-old girl called Lily.
People think our story ended the night Garrett missed those eighteen calls. They’re wrong. That night ended one life, but Ethan left behind something way stronger than anger or revenge. He left behind a reason to keep loving.
Please SHARE this article with your family and friends on Facebook.
Bored Daddy
Love and Peace