When the Countdown Ended, I Became the Family Curse Chapter 05 (Continue)
Dad slammed the storage room door open. Light poured in raw and unforgiving, exposing everything.
His legs buckled. He caught the doorframe to keep himself from collapsing.
I hovered above, looking down at what was left of me – curled up on the mattress like something that had
been thrown away.
My body was skeletal, except for one cheek still swollen from where Mom had hit me. My hair fanned out
across the pillow in dark, tangled strands.
The silence in that room was absolute – deeper than any quiet I’d known while I was breathing.
“What happened?” Mom appeared in the doorway, breathless. The scream came the moment she saw me
rigid on the bed, wasted down to almost nothing.
oh God, Mia -” Dad’s hands were shaking so badly he could barely hold his fingers under my nose.
There was nothing left in his eyes. “How did this happen?” he kept saying. “How did this happen?”
Mom crumpled to the floor, grabbing at Dad’s shirt, shaking him. He didn’t move. The world inside his head
had gone to static.
Grandmother’s words were still ringing through him. “My mother said “His throat tightened around the
words.
–
“She said we were never supposed to have children. That we couldn’t. So she she gave up her own years.
Traded them. For Mia.”
“That countdown – it was never Mia’s to begin with. It was my mother’s. Those were her years running out.”
“No children – but what about Sean? Sean’s our child too!” Mom’s hands were pressed against her mouth.
like she was trying to hold herself together.
I found myself nodding too, stunned. All of it – the eighteen years, the countdown, the death sentence branded on my forehead – none of it had ever been mine.
Dad went quiet, then shook his head. “Maybe she’s confused – the illness, the medication –
But his voice cracked before he could finish. “But Mia Mia’s really gone this time…”
“No. No, that can’t be right – we couldn’t have – I’m going back. I need to hear her say it again.”
Mom dragged herself up and ran back toward the nursing home.
She wasn’t thinking about Grandmother dying anymore. She was thinking about one thing – please, please
let it not be true.
Grandmother’s eyes were cloudy.
Her voice was barely there, but every word was steady.
“You and Miller were married five years. Five years, and no baby.”
“I went to someone
someone who could see things other people couldn’t. They told me you and Miller
would never have children. That it wasn’t in the cards for you.”
“How could I watch my son grow old without a family? So I made a deal. My years – whatever I had left- for a child. For you. And that child was Mia.”
“No that’s not – what about Sean? Sean’s our child too!”
With what little strength she had left, Grandmother lifted her hand and touched Sean’s hair. “Sean was a
blessing,” she said, her voice soft. “A gift no one expected.”
“You weren’t meant to have children – but Mia was meant to have a brother. So Sean came anyway. Some
things are bigger than what’s written.”
“My time’s up now. I’m ready. And I don’t regret a single day of it. Mia and Sean – they’ve got whole lives
ahead of them…”
Mom’s knees hit the floor. All she could see was the storage room – her daughter’s body, rigid and wasted,
on a bed behind a door no one had opened.
Every cold word, every slap, every time she’d set three places instead of four – it all came crashing down on
her at once.
I stood there – floated there – unable to move, unable to think, Grandmother’s words still echoing through
whatever was left of me.
The countdown was never mine. It was hers – every one of those 6,570 days bought with her own life, her
own years, so I could have mine.
Grandmother looked from Mom’s shattered face to Dad’s shaking hands, and something shifted in her
expression.
“Where is Mia? Why didn’t you bring her?”
Dad’s mouth opened. Nothing came out.
“Tell me!” Grandmother lurched upright with a strength that shouldn’t have been possible.
Dad dropped to his knees. “Mom, Mia’s gone…” The sobs broke through. “I’m sorry I’m so sorry-she’s gone and it’s my fault -”
The last of Grandmother’s strength left her. She fell back against the pillows, her eyes going wide-staring
at nothing, and everything.
Her voice was barely more than a breath.
“You… God will never forgive you for this…”