Tears of RegretChapter 2

"Eleanor?"

Macaulay's face was a kaleidoscope of emotions—shock, panic, then a deep, creeping guilt. He dismissed his secretary and walked toward me, forcing a look of pained apology.

"When did you get here? I was just trying to get a dose of that specialty drug for our daughter, but they wouldn't budge. I'm so sorry."

I shoved him away, the force of my grief tearing his pathetic mask to shreds.

"Stop acting, Macaulay! I heard everything! Do you even know? Do you know that our daughter is DEAD?" My voice cracked. "You told me your salary was cut, and I believed you! I took out loans, I begged my family for money to fund your business! You said it failed, and I believed that too! So what is this? How do you explain this billion-dollar company?"

"If you want to play the noble hero for your long-lost love, fine! But why did you have to drag me and our daughter down with you? You said she had it hard raising a child alone. You think I didn't?"

A gut-wrenching scream tore from my throat, and tears streamed down my face.

Macaulay stared at me, dumbfounded, his lips trembling. "Dead? Sophie is... dead?"

Before I could answer, there was a clatter at the door.

An elegantly dressed woman stood there, her hand flying to her mouth as silent tears rolled down her cheeks.

"Macaulay… you're the owner of this company? So the anonymous payments, the job, the medicine… it was all you?" she whispered. "I'm so sorry, I had no idea..."

Her face was pale as she staggered back, overcome with shame.

"Isabelle, it's not your fault! I wanted to do it!" Macaulay cried, his heart breaking at the sight of her tears. Any flicker of guilt he'd felt over our daughter's death was instantly extinguished. He rushed to comfort her, right in front of me, but she sidestepped him.

That's when I saw it. The Audi key fob in her hand. It looked exactly like mine.

Seven years ago, when the loans for his "failed" business came due, the court had seized my dowry—my car and a sprawling 4,300-square-foot luxury villa.

A sick feeling washed over me. I lunged for the personnel files on his desk, my fingers flying through them until I found her name. Isabelle’s current address was my villa. The one that had been "seized by the court."

It all clicked into place.

Rage, pure and hot, consumed me. "Macaulay!" My voice was a strangled shriek. I grabbed the file and hurled it at his face. "You told me the court took my car and my villa! Why does she have them?"

Faced with the undeniable truth, Macaulay was speechless.

Isabelle, finally understanding, bowed her head in shame. "I'm so sorry," she stammered, bowing to me. "I didn't know. I'll give you the keys back right now, and I promise I'll move out of the villa immediately."

She pressed the keys into my hand and turned to Macaulay, her chin held high. "Macaulay, thank you for everything you've done for me in secret, but I can't be the reason your marriage falls apart. As of today, I quit. And please, don't send me any more money."

With a final, tearful glance at him, she turned and ran.

"Isabelle!" he yelled, taking a few steps after her before stopping himself. He stood there for a long moment, then slowly turned back to me, his eyes filled with a deep, sorrowful expression.

"Eleanor, we can talk about this later. Is Sophie really gone? I thought her condition was under control."

A bitter, broken laugh escaped my lips. "I was the one holding everything together all these years. What would you know, with all your 'overtime' and 'business trips'?"

"Eleanor, I…" He opened his mouth, but no words came out.

To make amends, he dropped everything at the company. He spent the next three days with me, choosing a burial plot, ordering a headstone. He didn't eat or drink, his lips cracking from dehydration, but he never complained. He didn't dare speak to me.

Then, he took a phone call. When he hung up, he knelt before me.

His eyes were pleading, his voice laced with a desperate humility. "Eleanor, I failed you and Sophie. I'm a monster. You can hit me, scream at me, do whatever you want. But please… please let me be the one to see her off."

He looked up at me. "Can I be the one to bring her ashes to the gravesite? Please?"

I stared at his pathetic display, my heart a cold, hard stone. But then I thought of Sophie, of how much she had always longed for her father's attention. I finally nodded.

"Do what you want."

We would deal with us after our daughter was laid to rest.

A flicker of emotion crossed his face. He gave me a complicated look, then quickly stood and left.

The minutes ticked by, and a strange anxiety began to crawl under my skin. I sat by Sophie’s small, empty grave and pulled out my phone, intending to call and ask if he'd picked up the ashes. But on impulse, I opened his social media page. His recent activity led me to a profile named "BrokenSparrow."

It was Isabelle.

Her birthday was listed as April 17th.

Macaulay’s screen name was "April_17."

Her profile background was a picture of the ocean.

His status was: "Drowning in the sea."

My hand started to shake. I scrolled down, looking through her posts. Macaulay had liked or commented on every single one. My eyes landed on two posts from seven years ago.

"I'm so jealous of women who get to drive Audis!"

"Whoever buys me a 4,300-square-foot villa will be my hero forever."

The date on those posts? Exactly one week before my car and villa were "seized by the court."

I dropped the phone, my face wet with tears I hadn't realized I was crying. Just then, a new post from her appeared on my screen.

"I heard that human ashes can be used as a catalyst in certain folk remedies for heart conditions. I wonder if he'd be willing to part with them..."

A cold dread washed over me. I scrambled to my feet and ran to the crematorium's reception office.

"The urn for Sophie Vance?" the manager said, looking puzzled. "Your husband picked it up twenty minutes ago. You didn't know?"

My breath came in ragged gasps. I called his phone, over and over. No answer. A cold sweat broke out across my body as I hailed a cab and sped to Isabelle’s—to my—villa.

Through the iron gate, I could see it. Sophie's urn was empty, discarded on the lawn.

And Isabelle was smiling, feeding the last drops of a murky liquid to her own daughter.

After sending her daughter inside, she turned to Macaulay, her eyes shining with gratitude. "Macaulay, thank you. I can never repay you. But what if your wife finds out you used your daughter's ashes as a remedy for mine? Will she be angry? I heard her family is very powerful in this city."

Macaulay frowned, then waved a dismissive hand. "Don't worry about it. Eleanor is all alone now. Her family disowned her. No one will stand up for her. Besides, who else does she have to rely on but me? She wouldn't dare make a scene."

The hatred was a physical force, and it sent me charging through the gate. I slapped him, hard.

"Macaulay, are you even human? You had the cure, and you let our daughter die! And now you won't even let her rest in peace? You're a monster!" I rounded on Isabelle. "And you! Stop playing the innocent victim! If you had any decency, you wouldn't have posted those things online, and you certainly wouldn't have accepted his help, knowing full well he had a family!"

Macaulay was stunned by the slap. "Eleanor? How did you get here?"

Isabelle cowered behind him, her face ashen.

I was losing my mind. I lunged at him, my nails raking across his face, leaving bloody tracks on his handsome cheek.

He yelped in pain, his shock turning to rage. He kicked me, hard, in the chest. "Enough!" he roared. "It's just some ashes! You went to medical school, you should know that when you're dead, you're dead! Keeping her ashes won't bring her back! It's better for them to have some final use, to help Isabelle's daughter live!"

The words, so utterly devoid of humanity, struck me harder than the blow. Pain exploded in my chest, and I collapsed, shaking. But the physical agony was nothing compared to the agony in my soul. I struggled to my knees, my voice a broken whisper.

"I'm all alone because of you, Macaulay! I actually thought you felt some remorse for what happened to Sophie, but it was all a lie! Just another one of your schemes to get her ashes!" My voice rose to a scream. "You'll pay for this! Both of you! I'm calling the police!"

I fumbled for my phone.

Isabelle burst into tears. "Macaulay, don't let her call the police! My daughter and I will be ruined! We might as well just die!"

"Don't say that!" Macaulay's face contorted in panic. Acting on pure instinct, he grabbed a small gardening axe from the porch and swung it at my arm.

A scream of pure agony was ripped from my throat as the blade bit deep into my flesh. Blood sprayed across both our faces. The last thing I saw before I blacked out was the look of horror on his.

When I came to, I was locked in the attic. Blood was still seeping from the wound on my arm, which was cut nearly to the bone. I crawled weakly across the floor and found my phone. The first thing I saw was a news alert trending online: "CEO Macaulay Vance: A Model of Loyalty and Integrity."

My hands shaking, I clicked the link.

Somehow, the story of Macaulay's anonymous support for Isabelle had been "leaked." They were in the middle of a live television interview.

"Mr. Vance is a true role model for our times," the interviewer gushed. "To show such devotion to an old flame, while still maintaining clear boundaries… his own daughter must be the happiest girl in the world."

"I heard that every toy he buys for Miss Isabelle's daughter costs over a thousand dollars, and those are the cheap ones!"

"Someone online found out that when her daughter mentioned wanting to touch a cloud, Mr. Vance chartered a private helicopter, flew her up into the sky, and let her stick her hand out the window."

"And he takes them on international trips every month! If he treats his ex's daughter this well, I can only imagine how much he must spoil his own!"

I listened to the fawning praise, each word a dagger in my heart. My daughter had never even been on a plane. And Isabelle's daughter got to wake up and touch the clouds. While they were jet-setting around the world, my Sophie was tied to a vendor's cart with a piece of rope.

I collapsed, a wave of gut-wrenching sobs shaking my entire body. I stared at the screen, at the three of them, looking like a perfect, happy family. With a final, choked cry, I smashed the phone against the floor.

He still didn't seem to realize. My daughter was already dead. And Isabelle's wasn't far behind.