CHAPTER 3: THE WOMAN WHO SHOULD NOT EXIST
For a long moment, Lila did not move.
The words hung in the air like something physical—something too heavy to fall, too sharp to ignore.
I am your mother.
The corridor seemed to tighten around them after that, as if the hospital itself had leaned in to listen.
Lila’s fingers slowly loosened around the oxygen mask.
Not because she trusted it.
Not because she understood.
But because her body was too exhausted to argue anymore.
Her breathing was uneven again, but steadier than before. The panic had retreated into something quieter—confusion mixed with disbelief, mixed with a strange, uncomfortable pull she could not name.
She stared at Nadine.
Really stared.
At the woman on the floor.
Pale. Trembling. Barely breathing.
Dying.
And yet… looking at her like she already knew everything about her.
“No,” Lila said finally.
It was not loud.
It was not emotional.
It was flat.
A refusal.
Nadine didn’t react immediately. Her chest rose slowly, painfully, like each breath required negotiation with death.
“I understand,” she whispered.
Lila shook her head harder. “No. You don’t understand anything.”
Her voice cracked slightly on the last word.
She forced herself to stand, gripping the wall for balance.
“You can’t just say that,” she continued. “You can’t just appear in a blackout hospital and tell me something like that.”
Nadine’s eyes stayed on her.
Calm.
Too calm for someone dying.
“I didn’t appear,” she said softly. “I’ve been here all my life. Just… not near you.”
That sentence hit differently.
It didn’t sound like a claim.
It sounded like grief.
Lila’s throat tightened.
She hated that it affected her.
Hated it even more that part of her wanted to believe it.
“No,” she repeated again, weaker this time. “My mother died when I was a baby.”
Nadine closed her eyes briefly.
A flicker of pain crossed her face—but not surprise.
“I know what they told you,” she said.
Lila stepped back.
“How would you know what they told me?”
Nadine opened her eyes again.
Because she was looking directly at her.
Because there was no more distance left to hide behind.
“Because I signed the papers,” she said.
Silence.
Even the hospital seemed to stop making noise for a moment.
Lila’s breath caught.
“What papers?”
Nadine swallowed.
It took her a long time to speak again.
“Release. Adoption. Consent,” she whispered. “Whatever name they used that day.”
Lila shook her head slowly.
“No,” she said again, but now it sounded less certain. “No, my adoptive parents told me—”
“They received you from the state,” Nadine interrupted gently. “Not from a family who died. From a mother who couldn’t keep you alive.”
The words were soft.
But they broke something anyway.
Lila’s knees nearly gave out again.
She caught herself before she fell.
Her hand pressed hard against her chest, right over the crescent moon necklace.
“I don’t believe you,” she said, but her voice was losing strength.
Nadine nodded slightly.
“That’s okay,” she whispered. “You don’t have to believe me yet.”
That “yet” made Lila flinch.
Because it suggested time.
And Lila was suddenly aware that time was something the woman on the floor might not have much of.
Her eyes dropped involuntarily.
Nadine’s lips were turning slightly blue.
Her breathing had become shallow—thin, fragmented.
Still alive.
But barely.
Something in Lila’s chest twisted.
She hated herself for noticing.
Hated herself more for caring.
“You’re manipulating me,” Lila said quickly, as if accusing her could erase the feeling. “You’re sick. You’re confused. You—”
“I gave you my oxygen,” Nadine said softly.
That stopped her again.
Not because it was a strong argument.
But because it was true.
The mask was still in Lila’s hands.
Warm from use.
Still carrying the scent of someone else’s breath.
“I didn’t do that to manipulate you,” Nadine continued. “I did it because you were dying.”
Lila looked away sharply.
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“I know,” Nadine replied.
A pause.
Then, quieter:
“You were never supposed to ask.”
That line landed differently.
Heavier.
Lila’s grip tightened on the oxygen mask until her fingers hurt.
Outside the corridor, something metallic crashed again. Far away voices shouted orders that didn’t reach them. The storm outside continued to punish the city in silence.
Inside, everything had narrowed to two people.
One standing.
One dying.
And neither of them moving away.
Lila slowly sank back against the wall.
Her legs didn’t trust her anymore.
Or maybe her mind didn’t.
“I don’t remember you,” she said suddenly.
It came out almost like an accusation.
Nadine nodded.
“I wouldn’t expect you to.”
“That’s not normal,” Lila said quickly. “People don’t just forget their mothers.”
Nadine’s lips tightened slightly.
“Babies do,” she said gently. “Especially when they’re taken before they have language for memory.”
The word taken made Lila’s stomach drop.
She shook her head again, but slower now.
“I had a childhood,” she said. “I had parents. I had a home.”
“I’m not denying that,” Nadine said. “I’m only saying it began after me.”
Lila pressed her fingers harder against the necklace.
The crescent moon felt suddenly heavier than it ever had.
As if it had been waiting for this moment.
Waiting for someone to notice it had a story.
“You’re saying…” Lila hesitated. “You’re saying you gave me away.”
Nadine didn’t answer immediately.
Because the truth was not simple enough for yes or no.
“I was forced to sign,” she said finally. “I was sick. I had no support. No treatment. No money. And they told me you would die if I kept you.”
Lila frowned slightly.
“That doesn’t make sense,” she said. “I’m alive.”
A faint, sad smile crossed Nadine’s face.
“I know.”
That was all she said.
And somehow, that was worse than any explanation.
Lila stared at her.
Trying to find contradiction.
Trying to find an escape from the story forming in front of her.
But there was something else now.
Something she hated more than confusion.
Curiosity.
“What happened to you?” she asked suddenly.
Nadine blinked slowly.
The question seemed to take effort to process.
“To me?” she repeated.
Lila nodded, almost angrily. “Yes. You. Why are you here? Why are you like this? Why are you dying in a hospital floor alone if you’re really—”
She stopped herself.
If you’re really my mother.
She didn’t say it.
But it was there.
Nadine understood anyway.
Her voice softened.
“I never recovered,” she said.
“From what?”
Nadine hesitated.
Then:
“From letting you go.”
The corridor fell quiet again.
Not empty.
Just still.
Lila looked at her for a long time.
And something inside her shifted—small, reluctant, uninvited.
Not belief.
Not acceptance.
Something more dangerous.
Understanding that pain like that didn’t sound like a lie.
Nadine suddenly coughed.
Hard.
Her entire body tensed.
Blood—or something close to it—flickered at the corner of her lips.
Lila moved instinctively.
“No—hey—”
But she didn’t know what to do.
She wasn’t trained.
She wasn’t prepared.
She was just a woman standing in a broken hospital corridor holding an oxygen mask and a truth she didn’t understand.
Nadine raised a hand slightly.
Stopping her.
“It’s okay,” she whispered.
“It’s not okay,” Lila snapped.
The sharpness surprised even her.
Nadine looked at her.
And for the first time, there was something like warmth in her expression.
Not relief.
Not victory.
Recognition.
“You care,” she said quietly.
Lila froze.
“I don’t,” she replied immediately.
But it was too late.
They both knew it wasn’t true.
Nadine’s voice softened further.
“That’s enough,” she said.
Lila’s throat tightened.
She looked away again, angry at herself.
Angry at the situation.
Angry at the fact that something impossible was happening and she couldn’t stop it.
“I don’t know what you want from me,” she said.
Nadine shook her head faintly.
“I don’t want anything,” she whispered. “I already had my moment.”
Lila frowned.
“What moment?”
Nadine looked at her.
And smiled faintly.
“When I gave you my oxygen.”
A pause.
Then, softer:
“That was enough for me.”
Lila’s eyes stung unexpectedly.
She blinked hard, refusing to let anything fall.
“This is insane,” she whispered again, but without conviction now.
Nadine nodded slightly.
“Yes,” she agreed. “It is.”
Another pause.
Then Nadine added:
“But you are real.”
That sentence hit differently than all the others.
Because it wasn’t about truth.
It was about presence.
About the fact that no matter what Lila believed, she was standing here.
Alive.
Breathing.
Because of someone who claimed to have once lost her.
Lila slowly lowered herself to sit again.
Not fully surrendering.
Not believing.
Just… staying.
Nadine’s breathing was getting weaker.
More fragmented.
The hospital noise outside faded again.
Or maybe it was just Lila no longer hearing it.
“You’re going to die,” Lila said quietly.
Nadine didn’t argue.
“I know.”
Silence.
Then Lila spoke again, softer:
“Why did you do it?”
Nadine looked at her.
And for the first time since the beginning of the storm, her answer was immediate.
“Because you deserved to live more than I did.”
Lila didn’t respond.
She couldn’t.
Because something inside her cracked—not fully, not cleanly—but enough to let a feeling through.
Something she had never had words for.
Something like grief for a stranger she might have been born from.
Outside, the storm continued.
Inside, two lives remained suspended in a fragile, impossible balance.
One nearly gone.
One just beginning to understand why she existed at all.
And between them—
May you like
a silence that was no longer empty.
But full of everything neither of them knew how to say next.
