Chapter 2 - The Story They Chose
The ambulance ride was a blur of straps, monitors, and one paramedic telling me to keep breathing.
“I am breathing,” I snapped.
“Then keep doing exactly that.”
I clutched my stomach. “Is she moving?”
The paramedic pressed a monitor against me. A rapid heartbeat filled the ambulance.
My daughter was alive.
I started crying so hard I couldn’t speak.
At Massachusetts General, they rushed me into obstetric triage. Nurses cut away my sweater sleeve, checked my bruised hip, and hooked two monitors around my belly. I had contractions, but they were irregular. The baby’s heart rate was strong.
Ethan arrived twenty minutes later with Margaret.
I heard her voice before I saw either of them.
“She’s been emotional for months,” Margaret told a nurse outside the curtain. “Paranoid. Unstable.”
I pushed myself upright. “Get her away from me.”
Ethan stepped inside alone.
His face looked exhausted, but not frightened. That bothered me more than anything.
“Claire,” he said, “Mom says you were screaming at her before you fell.”
“She pushed me.”
“She says you pulled away and lost your balance.”
“I saw you.”
His eyes flickered.
There it was.
A crack.
“You were upstairs,” I said. “Before I fell.”
“No, I wasn’t.”
“You nodded at her.”
He looked toward the curtain. “You hit your head.”
“I did not imagine you.”
A doctor walked in before he could answer. She introduced herself as Dr. Patel and told me they wanted to keep me overnight for observation.
“The baby looks good right now,” she said. “But a fall like this can trigger placental complications or early labor. We’re not taking chances.”
Neither was I.
I asked Ethan to leave.
His jaw tightened. “You’re seriously throwing me out?”
“Yes.”
He stood. “Fine. But Mom is talking to someone because this is getting out of control.”
“Talking to who?”
He didn’t answer.
The next morning, Margaret walked into my hospital room beside a man in a gray suit carrying a leather briefcase.
May you like
He introduced himself as an attorney.
Then he placed a stack of papers on my bed.
