If Tomorrow Never Comes | On Hold

prologue

Dear Avery,

I know that my decision is hard for you to understand, but I hope that reading this will shed some light on why I did what I did.

I wanted to start off by telling you how much I love you. You are my absolute greatest accomplishment in life and I never want you to think that I left because of you. But your father and I were no longer working, even before he got sick. We kept all the arguments and glares behind closed doors for your sake but it was becoming more and more difficult to hide them.

I had already told him I was leaving before his diagnosis. And yes, I admit that moving out at such a time didn't sit well with me but your father did not want me to stay in an unhappy marriage due to pity and frankly, neither did I. We both deserved better than what we had been dealt.

I know that you are angry with me. I saw it in your eyes as you yelled at me to get out once I had packed my bags. I understand your frustrations with my leaving you and your father in his time of need. I promise you that I didn't leave him because he wasn't in good health and only because we both knew it was time to go our separate ways. You can hate me all you want, but I did what was best by you. Because I know that you'd resent us if we stayed in that marriage and allowed you to watch it crumble and cease to exist.

I'd rather you hate me than your father. He needs you right now more than ever.

I hope that with time you can come to forgive me. Maybe then, we can reconnect and build our relationship again to what it used to be.

I love you sweetie,

Mom.

Avery read the letter that she had found in the mailbox that morning. Her mother had left not even two weeks ago and here she was asking her daughter to one day forgive her. Avery glared at the piece of paper she held in her hands and ripped it to pieces.

She wanted nothing to do with her mother. Unhappy or not, she left her and her father when they needed her most. How was her sick dad supposed to look after a fifteen year old all on his own? And Avery was supposed to start her sophomore year in only a few weeks, would she be able to balance school work and taking care of her dad at the same time?

All kinds of thoughts swirled through her head. She felt lost, helpless. She hoped her mother would come back and tell her it was a mistake, that she wanted to stay and work things out with her family.

But as days turned into months and she heard nothing from her mother, that hope became nothing but a distant dream.

Avery and her father tried to live as comfortably as possible, as normal as they could with a mother and wife gone while a disease drained the life from her only parent.

Her hopes were no longer on her mother returning, but that her father would live to see tomorrow instead.