Chapter 1 - THE SHOVE
My sister-in-law pushed my wheelchair into a rooftop swimming pool while I was thirty-one weeks pregnant.
I remember her perfume. Orange blossoms. Then her hands tightened around the push handles, and the blue water rushed up to meet me.
"Serena, stop!"
The chair hit the edge. My stomach dropped. I went in sideways, still buckled beneath the lap belt my physical therapist had insisted on for crowded events. Water swallowed my scream. The chair pulled me down, one wheel catching the light as it turned above my face.
I clawed at the buckle. My fingers slipped. My dress billowed around me like a curtain. The party music became a distant, ugly thump.
My baby's name was June. She wasn't born yet, but I'd already whispered that name to her every night. Underwater, I begged her to hold on.
A shape broke through the surface. A young woman with black curls and a white catering shirt dove straight toward me. She reached for the belt, missed, and tried again. I saw her lips moving though I couldn't hear a word.
The clasp opened. The chair slipped away beneath us.
She hooked an arm under mine and kicked upward. Someone grabbed us at the pool edge. I coughed so hard I couldn't see. My stomach cramped. Then I heard a man shout for an ambulance.
"Breathe. Just breathe with me," the young woman said. Her name tag read TESSA.
On the deck, Serena stood beside an overturned champagne flute. She wasn't wet. Her perfect gold dress had not so much as a wrinkle.
"She rolled herself in," Serena announced. "I tried to catch her."
I tried to speak, but another cough bent me double.
Tessa pulled a towel over my shoulders. She was shaking harder than I was. "No," she said. "You didn't try to catch her."
Serena's eyes narrowed.
May you like
And Tessa said the words that changed everything.
"I watched you push her."
