My Family Left Me on Read So I Disappeared Forever Chapter 07

My Family Left Me on Read So I Disappeared Forever Chapter 07

On the third day after the video was posted, a local reporter came to the hospital. I didn’t want to speak to anyone, so Megan turned the reporter away for me.

But not everything could be kept at the door.

Dr. Morgan came to see me. She was the doctor from the community health clinic who had visited our home for my postpartum follow-up.

Unlike everyone else, she didn’t hesitate in the doorway. She walked straight to my bedside and sat down.

“Evie, I’m Dr. Rachel Morgan. I visited you at home for a postpartum checkup. Do you remember me?”

I did.

That day, she had asked how I was coping emotionally. Before I could answer, Mom had spoken for me.

“I couldn’t help you that day.” Her voice remained calm, though her eyes were red. “I won’t let that happen again.”

She opened the notebook in her hands.

“Would you be willing to talk to me?”

I clutched the edge of the blanket and remained silent for a long time before I finally spoke.

“I planted seventeen pots of hydrangeas. I timed them to bloom when my son turned one.”

My voice was so faint that I could barely hear it myself.

“I imagined taking his hand and leading him onto the balcony. I’d crouch beside him and point out the flowers one by one.”

“He probably wouldn’t have understood, but he would’ve smiled.”

Tears slid down my cheeks and soaked into the pillow.

“Then the flowers were gone. They took my baby away. My husband handed me divorce papers, and everyone kept saying there was something wrong with me.”

“I reached out to my uncle, and he told me to stop overthinking. I messaged my mother, and she read it but never replied.”

“Even if I’d wanted to run, I had nowhere to go.”

“Being alive didn’t feel any different from being dead. The only difference was that if I died, I wouldn’t have to listen to them call me crazy every day.”

Dr. Morgan’s pen stopped moving.

She didn’t tell me to be strong or urge me to stop dwelling on things. She simply took my hand.

“You’re not crazy. You’re sick, and you deserve to be treated.”

“Starting today, I’m going to help you.”

That afternoon, Dr. Morgan arranged for the hospital’s psychiatry team to conduct a full evaluation.

I was diagnosed with severe postpartum depression accompanied by an anxiety disorder. The printed report was two full pages long.

Dr. Morgan reviewed the results with the attending psychiatrist, and I was started on medication that same day.

It was the first time anyone had formally treated me in the 168 days since I’d given birth.

One hundred and sixty-eight days.

During my postpartum home visit, Dr. Morgan had recommended an urgent mental-health evaluation and arranged an appointment. Mom had called the clinic and canceled it.

When the clinic called a second time, she hung up on them.

From beginning to end, Ethan never once asked whether he should take me to see a doctor.

As for me, I hadn’t even known who to call or where to go for help.

Later, Dr. Morgan spoke publicly as well.

With my written permission, she released a statement through the hospital.

It included redacted copies of the postpartum follow-up notes, the canceled appointment record, and the clinic notes documenting the two follow-up calls Mom had ended.

The evidence was there in black and white.

Mom was the one who had canceled the evaluation.

The referral had been made on the forty-third day after I gave birth.

I went to the rooftop on day 168.

One hundred and twenty-five days had passed between those two dates, and not one person in my family had taken me to see a doctor.

I didn’t read the comments online, but Megan visited every few days and occasionally told me what people were saying.

“Someone wrote that postpartum depression didn’t do this to you. Your mother did.”

“People transcribed every voice message she posted in the family group chat.”

“Another comment said, [She planted seventeen pots of hydrangeas, and you ripped them out. She wanted to care for her own baby, and you wouldn’t let her. She begged you for help, and you ignored her. What exactly did you expect her to do?]”

I listened quietly.

I didn’t cry, and I didn’t feel vindicated.

All I could think about was how different everything might have been if someone had said those things months earlier.

On the day Mom canceled the appointment.

During one of those nights when Ethan asked, “What is it this time?”

Or before I stepped onto that rooftop.

If even one person had told me, “You’re not the problem. They are,” maybe I never would’ve jumped.