Chapter 2 - The Emergency Room
The ceiling tiles of the hospital hallway whipped by in a dizzying strobe of fluorescent light.
“Blood pressure is dropping—85 over 50,” a nurse shouted, running beside my gurney. “Fetal heart rate is decelerating! We need an ultrasound in trauma bay three immediately!”
“Hang on, Clara, stay with me,” the paramedic urged, squeezing my hand. “Keep your eyes open.”
Every breath felt like swallowing broken glass. I kept my palms pressed over my stomach, praying silently, begging whatever higher power existed to spare my child. *Take my legs, take my sight, take anything, just let my baby breathe.*
Suddenly, the double doors of the trauma bay burst open, and my husband, Mark, came running in. His tie was undone, his suit jacket rumpled, his face sheet-white with sheer terror. He had been at work when Rachel called him.
“Clara! Oh God, Clara!” Mark choked out, grabbing my cold hand as the medical team swarmed around me. “What happened? Rachel said you fell—how could you fall?”
“Megan…” I managed to whisper, the oxygen mask muffling my voice. “Mark… Megan pushed me. Mom… Mom lied to the police.”
Mark’s eyes widened in horror. Before he could speak, Dr. Thorne, the trauma obstetrician, pushed between us with a portable ultrasound wand.
“Sir, you need to step back. We need to find the heartbeat right now.”
The cold gel hit my skin. The silence in the room was suffocating. Dr. Thorne stared at the black-and-white screen, his jaw set in a hard line. Seconds stretched into an eternity. All I could hear was the frantic beep of my own elevated pulse monitor.
Then, faint at first, like the flutter of a hummingbird’s wings, a rhythmic sound filled the room.
*Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.*
Tears flooded my ears and soaked into the pillow.
“Fetal heartbeat is present,” Dr. Thorne announced, releasing a heavy breath. “It’s weak, and there is a partial placental abruption from the blunt force trauma. We cannot wait. We have to perform an emergency C-section right now, or we lose both of them.”
“Do it,” Mark said without hesitation, his voice shaking but firm. “Save my wife. Save my child.”
They wheeled me toward the operating theater. Before the heavy doors swung shut, I saw two uniformed police officers entering the waiting room, flanked by my mother and sister. Evelyn had her arm wrapped around Megan, who was sobbing into a silk handkerchief. Even from thirty feet away, I could see the calculated perfection of their performance.
The anesthesiologist pressed a mask over my face. “Count backward from ten, Clara.”
*Ten. Nine. Don’t let them win. Eight…*
Darkness claimed me.
Hours later, the heavy fog of anesthesia peeled away in painful layers. The harsh beep of monitors welcomed me back to reality.
My stomach was flat, wrapped in heavy medical bandages that burned with every twitch of my muscles.
“Mark?” I croaked, my throat raw from the intubation tube.
A chair scraped against the linoleum. Mark was at my side instantly, kissing my forehead, his cheeks wet with tears.
“She’s alive, Clara,” he whispered, his voice cracking with immense emotion. “It’s a girl. Five pounds, four ounces. She’s in the NICU under observation, but she’s breathing on her own. She’s a fighter, just like you.”
A sob broke from my chest—half relief, half pure, blinding pain. “A daughter. We have a daughter.”
“We do,” Mark smiled through his tears. But then his expression hardened, shadows deepening beneath his eyes. “Clara… while you were in surgery, Detective Rodriguez from the precinct came by. He took statements from your mother and Megan.”
My chest tightened. “What did they say?”
Mark clenched his fists so tightly his knuckles turned chalk-white. “Evelyn told them you’ve been suffering from severe prenatal psychosis. She claimed you threatened to terminate the pregnancy multiple times because you ‘weren’t ready.’ She told the detective you threw yourself down the stairs in front of everyone as a cry for attention.”
“It’s a lie!” I cried out, wincing as the incision in my lower abdomen flared with fiery pain. “Mark, you know me! You know how desperately we wanted this baby! We went through three rounds of IVF!”
“I know, baby. I know,” Mark said, wrapping his arms around me gently. “I screamed at them. I told the detective they were lying sociopaths. But Evelyn gave the police a journal she claimed was yours. It had pages and pages of handwritten entries detailing thoughts of self-harm.”
I stared at him in disbelief. “A journal? I don’t keep a journal.”
“Megan forged it,” Mark said grimly. “And because Evelyn is a respected philanthropist in the county and Megan plays the grieving sister, the detective is taking their story seriously. Evelyn is already trying to file for an emergency psychiatric hold against you. She wants full temporary custody of our daughter the moment she’s released from the incubator.”
The room seemed to spin. It wasn’t enough that they tried to kill my child on the stairs. Now they were attempting to steal her.
Just then, muffled voices filtered through the frosted glass of my hospital room door.
“Keep your voice down, Megan!” Evelyn’s sharp whisper cut through the silence outside. “The detective is coming back in twenty minutes.”
“I don’t care!” Megan snapped back, her voice laced with venomous anxiety. “What if Clara tells him about the will? What if he pulls the security records from Dad’s estate lawyer? If the police start digging into Dad’s trust fund, they’ll find out the money is gone!”
I froze, looking at Mark.
*Dad’s trust fund.*
My father had passed away two years ago, leaving his multi-million-dollar estate in a blind trust until his first biological grandchild was born. I had never cared about the money; Mark and I had our own modest lives.
Megan and Evelyn hadn’t pushed me because of jealousy.
May you like
They pushed me because my baby was about to expose a crime that could put them both behind bars for the rest of their lives.
***
