Page 36 of Mia

“No, I’m going to handle that.”

“No. We’re going to handle it. We ain’t doing this shit again, Mia. You try to handle this by yourself, and it could very well be your funeral next. I’m not burying my child, you hear me?”

I nodded.

“I can’t hear you.”

“Yes, Daddy.”

He pulled me into his arms for a hug and kissed the top of my head. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

I knew it would be a while before I could seek revenge on that son of a bitch. Right now, I was nursing a gunshot wound and a scar from having Eden taken. I’d passed out from so much blood loss and because of the gunshot, there was no way I could have delivered her naturally. That would have been even more traumatizing. I couldn’t imagine going through labor and not being able to hear her cry once she was out.

I would have taken her being in the NICU for months over anything like this.

Then I thought, what if her death was mercy? What if she had been in more pain being alive and fighting for her life? While I’d been laying in bed, I looked up statistics for babies surviving at my stage of pregnancy. I was seventeen weeks and according to the stats, she had a less than one percent chance of surviving birth or shortly after. Selfishly, I believed she could’ve been in that one percent because I wanted her to be.

The slight tugging on my hand broke me from the daze I was in. I blinked a few times before I realized that Grams and Titan were staring at me.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “What?”

“She asked if we wanted to say anything.”

I shook my head. “I can’t.”

He nodded and kissed my temple before ushering me into my father’s arms and walking up front. For a moment, he just stood there, seemingly gathering his words. Mrs. DeLuca broke away from her husband and went to stand beside him, as did Quaid. After a deep breath, he finally spoke.

“I uh… I never thought I’d be standing here doing this. When you learn you’re gonna be a parent, there is a certain excitement you feel. An instant love for someone you haven’t even met yet. I didn’t picture myself with kids for a while still to come, but the moment I knew I was going to be a father, all of that changed.

“Then it changed again when she was taken. I’m not the most emotional man in most aspects. I don’t do all that hollering and crying. For the past two weeks, I don’t think I’ve done much but cry. I’m so fucking⁠—”

He paused and his mother rubbed his back while Quaid squeezed his shoulder.

“I’m so angry because my daughter, my baby girl, is gone.” He stared down at the casket. “She’s gone. Most people feel like she was just a fetus. That her life wasn’t viable because she wasn’t here, but she was. She was a living, breathing part of Mia and I. Despite what anybody thinks of us together, Eden Amani DeLuca was created in love between me and my wife.

“Despite our actions, she was wanted, and we deeply mourn her loss. We have to love the ghost of who she would have been. We have to imagine the life she would have lived and the little girl she would have grown into. We… we have to learn to live without her before we even got the chance to live with her.”

He broke into tears, and that’s when his father made his way to the front. Watching him hold his son, the man I never saw let anything break him down, made me cry harder than I already was. I did this. I broke him. I broke us.

“I’m sorry,” I cried. “I’m so sorry, Titan!”

I couldn’t control the tears as they continued to fall. The harder I fought to regain my composure, the harder it became. My knees felt weak, and my chest felt tight.

“I can’t—” I gasped. “I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe!”

“You’re having a panic attack,” Daddy said calmly. “Listen to my voice. You hear me?”

I nodded as I clutched my chest.

“Focus on me and the sound of my voice. Breathe, Mia. We’re gonna do this together. In through your nose, out through your mouth. Okay? I’m gonna count you down. One… two… three… four.” He lifted his hand as he counted, giving me something to follow. “Hold it. One… two. Now out through your mouth. Nice and slow.”

I closed my eyes, but he snapped his fingers in my face.

“Focus on me, baby girl. In through your nose, out through your mouth.”

I focused on his eyes and mimicked his actions.