Rebirth at the Fifth Birthday

Shattered glass rained across the dashboard as a multi-car wreck locked the viaduct in twisted metal. A jagged steel rod from the vehicle ahead had punched straight through the windshield, pinning Evelyn Hale to her seat and draining every trace of color from her face.

Hovering on the brink of death, her thoughts went straight to her husband and young son. Gritting her teeth against the tearing agony in her chest, she fumbled for her cell phone with blood-slicked fingers and dialed Damon Voss.

The line chimed on and on without an answer. Staring at the glowing screen as each attempt failed and redialed, a suffocating hopelessness settled over her. Hot tears spilled down her cheeks as she breathed out a broken plea. "Come on, Damon, answer the phone. Please just pick up." She only wanted to hear their voices one final time before the dark took her.

At last, the call connected, greeted by a heavy sigh of irritation. "What do you want?" Damon's tone was frigid and openly resentful. A fresh sob tore from Evelyn's throat, yet before she could force out a single word about the crash, he cut her off sharply.

"Evelyn, how many times do we have to go over this?" he snapped, impatience straining every syllable. "Why is it so hard for you to respect my personal boundaries? You know that anything past nine o'clock is my private time. Can't you hold back from calling me? Even married couples need breathing room. It's high time you figured that out."

Tears tracked through the dust and blood on her skin. She could feel her life slipping away fast, leaving her far too weak to argue back. "Is Lucas there?" she asked in a threadbare whisper. "I know he's with you right now. Put him on for a second, please."

Perhaps catching the strange, ragged weakness in her voice, Damon hesitated for a beat before handing the device over. Seconds later, Lucas Voss's young voice piped through the speaker.

"Why do you always have to be such a pest? Have you even looked at the clock? You just ring whenever you feel like it without caring if I'm in the middle of something! You're always ruining my free time. I already told you I'm staying out tonight, and blowing up the phone isn't going to make me come home," the boy complained.

Her son's words carried the exact same bitter edge as his father's. Every single syllable hurt worse than the iron rod impaling her lungs. As warm blood continued to gush from her wound, her vision grew darker by the second. Still clutching at one final, fragile thread of hope, she murmured, "Damon, Lucas... if I died tonight, would either of you miss me at all?"

Neither her husband nor her son replied. Instead, a gentle female voice drifted clearly across the connection. "Here, have a bite of this. I swear it turned out right this time."

"Everything you bake is incredible," Damon answered, his voice softening with a warmth Evelyn had never once received from him.

"It's so good! Camilla, this tastes amazing—way better than anything from the sweet shop!" Lucas cheered, sounding thoroughly delighted.

Their cheerful banter echoed through the receiver. A sudden fullness rose in Evelyn's throat, flooding her mouth with the coppery tang of blood. *It's this late at night,* she realized bitterly. *They have all the time in the world to sit around eating treats with Camilla, yet picking up my call is treated like an unforgivable crime.*

*All those lectures about personal space and strict rules were only ever meant to shut me out. When it comes to Camilla, not a single boundary applies. Why? I'm the woman Damon married. I'm the mother who gave birth to Lucas. How could they do this to me?*

Pure resentment and fury surged through her fading body. She wanted to shout the truth straight into the microphone, to demand an answer, yet the massive blood loss had stolen her voice. Her awareness flickered out, and her fingers slackened around the casing of the phone. Staring down at the crimson stain spreading across her clothes, her eyes burned dark red with unshed grief.

The rot had begun three years back, the exact moment Camilla Mercer stepped back into their orbit. Bit by bit, both her husband and her child had shifted away from her. They began throwing around rules about privacy and independent schedules. Before long, inside her own house, anything Evelyn did was treated as an annoyance.

Eventually, simply asking for a glass of water during a high fever, or begging them to sit by her hospital bed before a major operation, was condemned as an invasion of their peace. She had a legal spouse and a biological child. Yet for three straight years, she had existed in total isolation.

The freezing numbness of hemorrhage crept over her limbs. Letting her eyelids fall shut in utter defeat, a strange sense of release softened her features. *I spent my entire existence revolving around Damon and Lucas. What a pathetic waste of a life. If I'm ever given another chance, I will live solely for myself.*

Her surroundings dissolved into a stark glare, and all sound receded into a dull, distant ringing.

"Mom, why are you always going after Camilla? How can you be so narrow-minded? You're just mad because she's prettier and nicer than you, so you're making up excuses to bully her, aren't you?"

The boy's sharp accusation pierced straight through the fog in her head. Evelyn sucked in a sudden, ragged breath, her eyes flying open to take in the brightly lit room around her. Right on the table sat an elaborate tiered cake topped with a wax candle molded into the number five. Standing beside it were her in-laws, Damon, and Camilla.

Across the table, Camilla stared back with watery eyes, the picture of wronged, helpless fragility. A sudden tingling sensation shot down to Evelyn's fingertips as a flood of old memories crashed into her mind all at once.

She knew this exact scene. She had been sent back three years into the past, right into the middle of Lucas's fifth birthday celebration. Because she knew her son had a dangerous nut allergy, spotting the crushed nuts coating the frosting had made her frantically demand that the dessert be thrown out.

Yet since Camilla was the one who had brought it, the whole family accused Evelyn of stirring up drama out of spite. Ever since the day she delivered Lucas, Evelyn had been the sole person handling his daily care.

Damon and his parents loved to boast about how much they adored the boy, yet they only ever bothered with him when he was cheerful and easy to entertain. None of them had ever put in the grueling work of actually raising a child. Because of their neglect, nobody else in this house had a clue that eating nuts could send Lucas into fatal shock.

*The last time I lived through this,* Evelyn recalled silently, *I forced them to swap out the cake, and Camilla played the victim. She bolted out the front door in tears and got clipped by a passing car. It was barely a scrape, yet Damon still forced me to bow my head and apologize to her. Even Lucas despised me after that night, screaming that he wished I wasn't his mother.*

*From this birthday onward, every single time the two of them ditched me to hang out with Camilla, they threw that accident in my face. They claimed I owed her a permanent debt, insisting that my cruelty had left her with lingering health issues that required their constant care.*

Sorting through the bitter reality of her previous life, Evelyn anchored herself firmly in the present. Turning her gaze back to her husband, her eyes were completely devoid of warmth.

"I am not making a scene, and I am only going to repeat this once," she stated, her voice level and cold. "Lucas is severely allergic to nuts. Are you completely certain you want him to take a bite of that cake?"