Chapter 7 - The True Colors at Mercy General
The steady, rhythmic *beep-beep-beep* of the fetal heart monitor was the first sound that pulled me back to the surface.
I opened my eyes to the sterile, bright white ceiling of an intensive care room in the labor and delivery wing at Mercy General Hospital. The harsh smell of antiseptic and rubbing alcohol burned my nostrils. An IV line was taped to the back of my hand, pumping magnesium sulfate into my veins—a drug that made my limbs feel like lead and my brain feel wrapped in wet wool.
Beside my bed sat Wes.
He hadn't washed his face. He hadn't changed out of his wet clothes; his gray thermal shirt had dried stiff against his frame. His eyes were bloodshot, surrounded by dark, bruised hollows. When he saw my eyes open, a ragged, trembling breath escaped his lips.
"Sadie," he whispered, standing up and hovering over the bed, afraid to touch me without permission. "You’re awake. Thank God. Oh, God, thank God."
"The baby?" I croaked, my throat raw.
"She’s okay," Wes said, tears instantly welling in his eyes. "The magnesium stopped the contractions. Her heart rate is stable. The doctor said... they managed to bring your pressure down to 135 over 85, but they’re keeping you on strict bed rest until thirty-six weeks. You can't go back to work. You can't be under stress."
He reached out, his hand hovering over mine, his fingers shaking.
"I almost killed you," he whispered, his voice cracking with self-hatred. "My silence almost killed both of you."
I looked at him, feeling an exhaustion that reached deep into my marrow. I didn't feel anger anymore; I felt a vast, cold clarity.
"Where is she, Wes?"
Before he could answer, the door to my room swung open.
Lorraine walked in.
She wasn't in a hospital gown. She was dressed in her designer beige wool coat, carrying her leather purse, a fresh silk scarf tied immaculately around her head. She held a small paper cup of hospital coffee. She looked completely refreshed, vibrant, and completely untouched by the "cardiac emergency" that had landed her in the same facility four hours ago.
"Well," Lorraine announced, stepping toward the foot of my bed with an irritated sigh. "I see the drama queen is finally awake."
Wes froze. He slowly turned around to face his mother.
Lorraine didn't notice the terrifying, lethal stillness in her son’s posture. She took a sip of her coffee, grimacing.
"Wesley, you left me down in the observation lounge for three hours," she complained, her voice sharp, dismissive, and entirely free of any raspy weakness. "They discharged me at seven. The doctor said my chest pains were just minor acid reflux from that terrible spicy soup Sadie insisted on making earlier this week. I had to sit on a plastic chair while the staff ran around dealing with her little fainting spell."
I watched Wes.
His fists clenched at his sides. The veins in his neck bulged against his skin.
"My wife didn't have a fainting spell, Mom," Wes said, his voice terrifyingly quiet, like the low growl of an engine before it throws a rod. "Her blood pressure spiked to stroke levels. She had acute pre-eclampsia. Our daughter almost died tonight."
Lorraine waved her hand airily, scoffing.
"Oh, please. Women have babies every single day, Wesley. My generation didn't run to the emergency room every time we felt a little lightheaded. She’s just doing this to turn you against me. She’s jealous because she knows you love your mother, and she’s weaponizing that pregnancy to get all the attention."
She stepped closer to the bed, glaring down at me with cold, venomous contempt.
"You ruined my dinner, Sadie. You ruined my evening, you humiliated me in front of the neighbors with those sirens, and now you’ve kept my son at the hospital all night when he’s supposed to be driving me to the pharmacy to pick up my supplements. I am sick of this nonsense."
The room went dead silent.
Lorraine looked at Wes, expecting her usual compliance. She expected him to apologize, to smooth things over, to carry her bags and buy her dinner.
Instead, Wes reached into his jacket pocket.
He pulled out his phone, unlocked the screen, and turned the volume up to maximum.
He pressed play.
Trina’s salon video erupted into the quiet hospital room.
*“...The bank is threatening foreclosure... Wesley is weak, guilty, and desperate to be the hero... I’ll run that girl ragged until she snaps...”*
Lorraine’s paper coffee cup slipped from her manicured fingers.
It hit the linoleum floor, spilling dark, hot coffee across the white tiles, splashing against the hem of her beige coat.
Every drop of color drained from her face. Her jaw dropped, her eyes bulging as she stared at the glowing screen in her son’s hand.
"Trina..." she choked out, her voice barely a squeak.
"Trina," Wes repeated, stepping directly into his mother’s personal space. He stood six-foot-two, his broad frame towering over her, his eyes burning with an incandescent, terrifying rage. "The stylist you paid four hundred dollars to hack off your hair. The stylist you bragged to about bleeding my family dry."
"Wesley... darling, wait," Lorraine stammered, stepping backward until her spine hit the closed door. "That was... that was just a joke! Trina and I were joking! You know how I get when I’m anxious—"
"Shut your mouth," Wes snarled.
Lorraine recoiled as if she had been struck. She had never, in thirty-four years, heard that tone from her son.
"You faked cancer," Wes said, his voice trembling with a fury so deep it shook the walls. "You shaved your head. You moved into my home. You stole forty-five hundred dollars of my daughter’s medical fund. You watched my pregnant wife clean up after you for two months while you laughed about pushing her out of the picture."
"Wesley, I am your mother!" she shrieked, tears instantly flooding her eyes as she attempted her lifelong defensive maneuver. "I sacrificed everything for you! Your father left me with nothing! I was desperate! I did it because I love you! I needed you to take care of me!"
"You don't love me," Wes spat, tears of pure grief and disgust spilling over his lashes. "You used me. You turned me into a weapon against the woman I love. You made me risk my wife’s life and my baby’s life for your sick, selfish ego."
He pointed a shaking, grease-stained finger directly at the door.
"Get out."
"Wesley—"
"Get out of this hospital room before I call security and have you dragged out in handcuffs," Wes roared, his voice booming down the hallway. "And do not go back to my house. The locks are already being changed. If you set one foot on our property, I will have you arrested for grand larceny and fraud."
Lorraine looked at him, searching desperately for the compliant, guilty little boy she had controlled for three decades.
She found nothing.
The boy was dead. The man standing in front of her was a husband and a father, fiercely guarding his family from a predator.
Her face hardened into an ugly, hateful sneer.
"You’re pathetic, Wesley," she hissed, wiping her fake tears away with the back of her hand, her mask entirely discarded. "Just like your father. You’ll die a broken mechanic with nothing to show for it."
She spun on her heel, wrenched the hospital door open, and stormed out into the corridor, her high heels clicking sharply against the floor until the sound faded into nothingness.
The door swung shut.
Wes stood alone by the spilled coffee, his chest heaving, his head bowed.
May you like
Then, he turned around and walked slowly over to my bed. He collapsed onto his knees beside my mattress, buried his face in the thin hospital blanket over my legs, and wept like a man who had finally cut out the cancer that had been poisoning his entire life.
***
