Goodbye, Mr. Regret

Sallie hung up the phone and hurried toward the operating room.

She arrived to find Herbert holding Jessica upright while a nurse urged Jessica to sign the critical condition consent form.

Her grandfather had just come out of a coma-he was barely conscious, still weak and pale. Her father hadn't woken up yet. Jessica, shaken and distraught, was in no state to sign anything.

Sallie herself was far from calm; her palms were slick with cold sweat as she rushed down the hallway. But she forced herself to focus. She had to hold it together.

Herbert tried to reason with Jessica, his voice gentle but urgent. "Whenever a patient's in a life-threatening crisis, the doctors always ask for this consent form. It doesn't mean there's no hope. There's still a chance they can save him."

As a doctor himself, Herbert understood the situation all too well. It was protocol- grim as it sounded, the family had to sign, even if it meant the outlook was bleak. But the emergency team wouldn't stop trying.

Jessica's right hand trembled violently as she gripped the pen.

"We can't wait any longer," the nurse pressed, her tone clipped and insistent.

"I'll sign." Sallie stepped in, taking the pen from Jessica's shaking hand. She scanned the document-internal bleeding, old injuries aggravated by new trauma, a severe laceration on the forehead, and the threat of a fatal cerebral hemorrhage.

Her heart clenched painfully in her chest, but she forced herself to sign her name.

the doors. The operating room doors swung shut

felt her own

movement coming from the

the wall, drained of all strength. Herbert held onto her, but she felt

you to sit down,"

her head. "I

were made of lead; just lifting her feet seemed impossible. There weren't

her that every hardship she faced was a stepping stone that would make her stronger, that one day she'd leave them behind. But right now, she couldn't believe it. The

of Timothy dying-this pain cut deeper

could do was tyto take her love back,

the light that had illuminated her world

of her heart-how it had changed her. In the four years that followed, she kept track

like motion,

longer

more force that momentum