The Bleeding Superwoman

Down in the foyer, Desmond rested a hand lightly atop Hazel's hair, keeping his voice mild and measured. "We've had plenty of fun today. Your mother was in a traffic wreck, and she needs us home."

"Martha's already here, though—can't she look after Mom?" Hazel protested, every careless word landing like a blunt weight against Clara's chest. "We aren't doctors anyway. It's not like we can actually fix anything. Besides, Dad, did you forget? Mom's a superwoman. Pain doesn't even touch her."

Up in the shadows of the landing, Clara stood still as memories from three years back rushed into focus. A rival executive, desperate to derail a major Mercer Group contract, had sent a heavy sheet of plate glass plummeting from an upper story straight toward them.

Clara had thrown herself over Hazel without a second thought, taking the entire crash across her own back as jagged shards drove deep into her flesh.

Seeing her mother drenched in blood at the hospital, Hazel had sobbed until she could barely breathe. Swallowing the agony tearing through her back, Clara had smiled and invented a gentle lie—promising her terrified little girl that Mommy was a superwoman who couldn't feel pain at all.

Now that same superwoman stood bruised and hurting in her own home, while the daughter she had bled for cared only about a missed light show. A quiet, bitter ache welled up in Clara's throat.

Downstairs, as though catching a faint shift in the air, Desmond lifted his eyes toward the second-floor railing, his gaze lingering on her. Hazel looked up along his line of sight and spotted Clara standing motionless in the corridor above.

A flicker of guilt crossed the girl's face as she ducked her head, yet she still mumbled stubbornly under her breath, "See? I told you Mom was totally fine."

Mom had always been tough, handling every problem without a complaint—how badly could she really be hurt? Maybe there was still enough time to turn the car around and catch the end of the light show, Hazel thought with a sulky frown.

When Desmond started up the staircase, Hazel stuck out her lower lip and trailed behind him, her annoyance sharpening with every step. Mom had definitely staged this on purpose, getting Martha to make a huge fuss when nothing was even wrong. Now Ms. Monroe was upset, Hazel's night was ruined, and what if Ms. Monroe decided never to invite her out again?

Reaching the top of the stairs, Desmond stopped before Clara and looked over her colorless face, his voice practical yet completely devoid of warmth. "You look pale. Standing out here won't do you any good—go lie down. I told Martha to put some oatmeal on the stove, so eat a bowl once it's ready."

Oatmeal? Martha had already cooked her a bowl the moment she limped through the front door, leaving her husband's routine concern trailing three full hours behind schedule.

Too hollowed out to mention how badly her body hurt, Clara didn't waste her breath answering. She gave a slight, silent nod and turned back into the master bedroom.

Before long, Martha stepped inside carrying a fresh bowl of warm oatmeal, having stirred in chopped dried apricots to take away the blandness. Setting it down, the housekeeper turned warmly to the child hovering nearby. "Have a little something too, Miss Hazel, or you'll wake up hungry tonight."

Eyeing the plain oatmeal on the table, Hazel pouted even harder. They were supposed to be sitting down to a fancy dinner with Ms. Monroe right now, and one phone call about Mom had wrecked the entire evening. Still, she kept those complaints locked behind her teeth, knowing full well how angry Desmond would get if she said them aloud.

Lying back against the pillows, Clara had zero appetite. Deep bruises and torn skin throbbed across her torso, making it impossible to shift into a position that didn't hurt. Catching sight of her strained breathing, Martha spoke up right away. "Mr. Mercer, Mrs. Mercer's injuries still need tending. Enough time has passed that her hospital dressings ought to be changed."

Desmond turned his cool gaze toward the bed, his eyes dropping to where dark red blood had begun seeping steadily through the thin fabric of Clara's pajama top. His brows drew together in a sharp frown. "Why didn't you tell me you were bleeding?"

"There's nothing to say," Clara answered in a flat, colorless tone. Seven years of chronic indifference had long since drained the warmth from her chest, leaving her completely numb to his belated displeasure.

When Martha brought over the household medical kit, Desmond rose from his chair and took the box out of her hands. "Leave it to me."

Martha gave a quiet nod and slipped out, pulling the door shut behind her.

Sitting on the edge of the mattress, Desmond tore open a sterile gauze packet and reached forward to unfasten the top button of Clara's blood-stained pajamas. Just as his fingers brushed the placket, a distinct, custom ringtone sliced cleanly through the quiet bedroom.

Without a fraction of a second's pause, Desmond dropped his hands from her collar, set the medical supplies aside, and picked up his phone.

"Desmond, I just twisted my ankle—it hurts terribly," Chloe's voice spilled softly through the speaker, quivering with held-back tears. "Could you ask Mr. Hayes to drive over and take me to the emergency room?"

Across the room, Hazel abandoned her barely touched spoon, bolted over to the bed, and clutched desperately at Desmond's sleeve. "Ms. Monroe got hurt? What happened to her? She can't handle pain at all! Dad, you have to go right now and make sure she's okay!"

Looking at the frantic panic widening her daughter's eyes, Clara felt a heavy, suffocating weight settle across her chest. Mom was a superwoman who felt nothing when glass tore into her back, while Ms. Monroe couldn't bear a twisted ankle. The sheer irony of it left no room to breathe.

Desmond glanced down at Clara's stained shirt, hesitating for barely a heartbeat before making his choice. "I'll send Martha back up to change your dressings. I'll come home as soon as things are settled."

Placing the unopened bandages back onto the nightstand, he stood and turned toward the door. When Hazel scrambled to run out beside him, Desmond halted her with a firm look. "Stay home with your mother." Leaving no room for argument, he strode swiftly out of the bedroom.

Left awkwardly behind, Hazel shifted from foot to foot as her gaze brushed Clara's pale face, an uneasy wave of guilt creeping in as she wondered if she had spoken too loudly. "Mom, since you're hurt and need sleep, I'll head back to my own room now," she mumbled hastily before bolting out into the hall.

Before the girl's footsteps even reached her bedroom down the corridor, the crisp chime of her smartwatch dialing echoed clearly back through the doorway. "Ms. Monroe, are you alright? Does your ankle hurt really bad?"

Alone beside the abandoned medical kit, Clara lay completely motionless. She braced herself for the familiar, crushing ache to close over her throat, yet to her quiet surprise, nothing came except an eerie, settled calm.

Even after Martha came back upstairs to replace the soaked gauze, the relentless throbbing from her wounds kept sleep entirely out of reach. Lying flat pressed directly against her bruised ribs, making it far less painful simply to stay on her feet.

Hours later in the dead of night, Clara eased off the mattress intending to walk downstairs for some air. Just as her hand neared the bedroom doorknob, the soft click of another door opening sounded down the hall.

Crossing quietly to the bedroom window, she looked down onto the illuminated drive and spotted Hazel hurrying toward the garage with a star-printed blanket wrapped around her small shoulders, the face of her smartwatch glowing faintly against the dark.

"Hurry up, Mr. Smith," Hazel urged the family chauffeur by the car door. "Ms. Monroe wants warm oatmeal from that specialty shop over on the west side of town."

Watching from above, Clara slowly lifted her phone from her pocket and dialed a private cell number she hadn't dared call directly in years. After two brief rings, the line clicked dead—disconnected on his end. A faint, mirthless smile touched the corner of her mouth. Just as she thought, she didn't even hold as much weight with him as the housekeeper did.

Distant as Hazel had grown, Clara still couldn't stand by and watch a young child slip out into the city late at night; blood still bound them together, however thinly. Opening her messages, she typed out a brief line letting Desmond know Hazel had just left the property. This time, her screen lit up within seconds with a curt, two-word reply: [Got it.]

Standing in the cold glow of the display, Clara idly scrolled upward through their chat log, struck by the stark realization that her husband had messaged her fewer times over the years than automated spam carriers did. Switching over to her photo gallery, she swiped steadily backward through hundreds of stored images until an even heavier truth sank all the way in.

Every single frame across her daily life centered around Desmond and Hazel. Nowhere in her own phone did even a fleeting trace of Clara herself exist.

For seven straight years, she had stood quietly behind the lens recording every milestone of their lives, reduced to an invisible bystander inside what was supposed to be her own marriage.

A sudden, quiet surge of defiance rose steadily through her chest. Resting her thumb against the glass, Clara began tapping delete on the photographs one after another until the entire album sat completely blank, never once uncovering a single picture of her own face.

Right then, the last illusion snapped cleanly in two. It was finally time to wake up.

Moving with calm, numbed precision through the silent house, Clara pulled out her suitcase and packed away her few personal essentials, then sat down at the desk before a set of printed divorce papers. When her eyes reached the section governing child custody, her hand paused in midair, hovering over the blank line for a long, heavy stretch.

At last, steadying her fingers, she lowered the pen and wrote four unmistakable words across the page: [I give up everything.]

Signing her name cleanly at the bottom, she slipped her wedding band off her ring finger and sealed both the executed agreement and the ring inside a plain document bag. A bone-deep weariness settled permanently inside her chest, carrying one quiet certainty—never again in this life would she bring herself to choose love.