Marlowe sat next to her husband reading articles on her phone. Strokes, stroke recovery, craniectomy. Every word she heard she had looked up and saved in labeled bookmarks on her phone.

"You can't do that to yourself," Shawn had told her earlier that week when he stopped by to visit. "You're going to make yourself insane. Nothing good comes from looking up medical things on the internet except convincing yourself you're going to die from a paper cut."

But she couldn't help herself. She had been sitting in this room for a week just waiting it out like the doctors had told her. He seemed to be the same, not that she knew anything. But the nurses seemed less worried when they walked into the room. And the doctors would spend less and less time shining flashlights in his eyes or looking at the soft spot on his head that had slowly begun to shrink down against the bandage.

At this point, she was truly just waiting, hoping and praying for the best just like Dr. Singh had told her to do that night they had rushed him off to surgery. She was slowly beginning to feel like all of her hopes and prayers were coming true, but it was a cautious optimism. Deep in her heart, she was still stuck in the waiting room that first night in the hospital, expecting someone to come up to her any minute and tell her that he had died.

Her in-laws weren't helping either.

Juliet had been the one to call them the day after his stroke. Marlowe wanted to do it, but she was too afraid to tell his mother- she already had a pretty good feeling she didn't like her very much after spending time in jail. Thus, Juliet graciously offered, never afraid to stand up to the loud old woman who had raised her partner. And Marlowe sat next to her, grasping her hand desperately for support. But she could feel Juliet holding her hand back just as tightly, and she was unsure which of them needed the steady hand more.

"I'm so sorry to be the one to tell you this," Juliet said, her eyes already shining red as the words started to fall and her voice started to crack. Marlowe could hear a loud cry from the other side of the line as Juliet tried to explain to them what had happened.

They showed up at the hospital two hours later.

Althea had been quiet, never one to say many words except little secrets she would whisper to Lily when they had dinner together. But Carlton's mother was loud. The second Mona walked into the hospital room, she instantly began demanding to know exactly what had happened. She berated the poor young nurse with so many questions, Marlowe finally had to step in to help relieve her from the room. Not that any of them were mad at her. This was Marlowe's husband laying in the hospital bed on death's door, but this was Mona's son. She didn't ever want to know what that was like. As horrible as she felt now, she couldn't even begin to imagine what this would feel like if Lily was in his place. And she never wanted to find out.

She tried to push past the fear, passing each day, hour by hour, sitting next to him in the bed, talking to him and holding his hand, waiting for someone to tell her if he was improving or not. But people told her very little. So she sat next to him, trying to read the faces of those caring for her husband as they casually rolled and poked and prodded her husband like there wasn't a living, breathing soul inside that shell of a body that had once been her strong husband.

She had taken time off work so she could be with him, which meant that she had nowhere to be, but it also meant she had nowhere to be. Instead, she would sit at his bedside, giving updates to anyone who would stop by to check on him. The visits usually went well. Shawn and Juliet would come almost every afternoon, each taking a minute to visit with Carlton privately before spending the rest of the time checking in on her, making sure she was still feeding herself and showering. She wasn't though- not well at least, but she would lie, eternally grateful for their continued concern and support.

She was grateful for everyone in their lives, all coming together to help take care of her, and Lily, as she sat in the hospital day after day. Even after the doctors told her that the immediate danger of the stroke had passed, and politely asked her to leave after visiting hours were over, they still offered to take Lily home with them for sleepovers and get her to and from preschool.

She couldn't let her baby see her like this. Neither of them. She wanted things to be as normal for Lily as possible, and being at home with her was not the way for that to happen right now. Marlowe was barely feeding herself. She would come home and lay in bed for hours at a time, her mind racing, unable to sleep but incapable of summoning enough energy to clean the house or put her clothes away. Piles of documents and bills and brochures stacked up on the kitchen table with each passing day.

She couldn't bring Lily home to this. It wasn't fair to her. Lily deserved a Mommy and a Daddy who could be there for her, and right now that was impossible for both of them. Marlowe felt guilty every time she kissed Lily goodbye when she would go visit her, but she couldn't will herself to just bring her daughter home with her.

"What's wrong, Mommy?" her baby asked last time she went to see her. Karen had picked her up for the day and Iris was going to watch her when she got home from school. She wrapped her arms around Lily and gave her all the love she could.

"I'm just tired, Lilypad."

If only that was all that was wrong. Marlowe thought to herself, squeezing her daughter tightly.

"Mommy, I can't breathe," Lily said. Marlowe felt Lily squirming in her arms. She loosened her grip and sighed.

I just want to take away all of your hurt, she wanted to tell her. Nothing is okay right now and I want to make it okay for you but it's not. And I can't.

"I'm so sorry," Marlowe told her, for so many things.

"Mommy, I want to see Daddy," Lily said, looking intensely into Marlowe's eyes. "When can I see Daddy?"

Marlowe felt her heart shatter into a million pieces for her little girl. She just wanted Lily to be able to see her daddy too. She just wanted to see him too. More than anything. She looked to Karen for reassurance as salty tears stung her eyes.

"Daddy's still in the hospital resting," Karen said, coming over to sit next to them. "They need to give his brain lots of rest so it will feel better and he can come home and play with you again soon."

"But I miss him," Lily said. Marlowe watched, heartbroken, as Lily's eyes filled with big fat tears that formed quickly and rolled down her cheeks.

I do too, Marlowe gave Lily another tight hug, feeling the tears escape her own eyes and begin to fall.

"We're here!" Marlowe heard Shawn's voice carry down the hallway from the direction of the elevator. But it was his "little kid voice." The one he only used around Lily.

Marlowe jumped up and looked out the door to see Shawn and Gus standing by the elevators, Gus holding tightly to Lily's hand who was looking around, mouth opened.

"Shawn! Gus!" She said, rushing out of the room to meet up with them before anyone saw her four-year-old in the ICU.

"Mommy!" Lily said, escaping Gus's hand and running to her.

Marlowe instinctively put her arms out and caught her daughter mid-air. Lily laid her head down on her shoulder and began stroking her hair across her back.

"Mommy, your hair is tangly," Lily said, her fingers pulling on thick knots that had formed in Marlowe's hair since her last shower several days ago.

"What are you guys doing here?" Marlowe asked in a hushed tone through gritted teeth. "She has no business being here aside from the fact that she is definitely not allowed up here."

"It was Shawn's idea," Gus said immediately.

Shawn swung his shoulder to elbow Gus in the back.

"Wow," Shawn said, quickly moving out of the way to avoid being hit by Gus's elbow. "You are the worst confidant ever."

"I wasn't trying to be a good one," Gus said in return, looking straight ahead at Marlowe.

Lily started squirming and getting heavy in Marlowe's arms, so she bent over to place her on the ground.

"We had to pick Lily up from daycare," Shawn said, glaring at the side of Gus's head. "She got in a fight with some four-year-old prick named Jason."

Gus threw his hands up and turned around to read a poster on the wall.

"Gus thought-"

"He thought," Gus shot back without turning around.

"Okay. We thought that it might help Lily if she could see Lassie. Maybe help her understand what is happening,"

"Shawn," Marlowe said, unsure of where to even begin. "Lily is four years old. She can barely process any of this, and now she is probably going to be scarred just from coming up to the floor. On top of the fact that toddlers are not allowed in the ICU."

She was about to continue when she heard a little voice in the distance.

"Daddy! What's wrong?"

Loud alarms started going off in the direction of Carlton's room and Marlowe turned around and started racing down the hallway. She got to the door and saw Lily standing on the chair next to her father, eyes wide open.

"Lily!" Marlowe ran into the room and swept her daughter off the chair. She placed her quickly in the corner, ignoring the loud thud she hoped wasn't her daughter's head. But she couldn't focus on that right now. She turned quickly back to her husband and grabbed his right hand which was moving in quickly to grab the ventilation tube down his throat.

"Carlton, no!" she said loudly, trying to get him to stop. He may have spent the last week in the hospital, but he was still stronger than her, especially when he wanted to be, and he certainly wanted to be right now.

She heard Lily crying and for a moment felt little hands on her legs, but she was so focused on keeping her husband's hand away from his breathing tube she couldn't focus on anything Lily was saying.

"Grab her!" she yelled to Shawn over the commotion as three nurses ran into the room to help her.

She stepped back and let the nurses take over, pushing medications into his lines and using all of their strength to keep his arms on the bed. She saw Shawn grab Lily who was trying to wiggle out of Shawn's arms, kicking and screaming. She turned back to see Carlton's pointed attempts to escape slow as his eyes fluttered shut despite his obvious attempts to stay awake, twitching over the heavy sedation they were pushing into his lines.

"Daddy!" she yelled loudly, her high-pitched cries scratching Marlowe's ears, "Let go of me! Let me see my daddy!"