“Breathe, Lucía. Stay with the rhythm,” Dr. Rivas said. Her voice was firm, professional, the voice of a woman who had seen life enter the world a thousand times. “You are doing perfectly.”
I wasn’t doing perfectly. I was disintegrating.
I turned my head, sweat stinging my eyes, searching for the one thing that was supposed to anchor me. My husband, Andrés Molina. We had been married for five years. We had built a home, a life, a future. I needed his hand. I needed his eyes on mine. I needed him to say the words that justify the pain.
But Andrés wasn’t looking at me.
He was standing in the far corner of the room, his face illuminated by the pale, sickly glow of his smartphone. His thumbs moved across the screen with a manic, rhythmic intensity. Swipe. Tap. Swipe. Tap.
He wasn’t pacing. He wasn’t wringing his hands in anxiety. He was texting.
Maybe he’s updating my parents, I told myself, the excuse tasting like ash in my mouth. Maybe he’s terrified and distracting himself. Men handle fear differently.
But even through the haze of agony, my gut twisted. There was no fear in his posture. There was only calculation.
Suddenly, the pressure in my chest changed. It wasn’t the baby. It was me. A sharp, icy claw gripped my heart and squeezed. The steady beep of the monitor stumbled, skipped a beat, and then accelerated into a frantic, high-pitched warning.
“BP is crashing!” a nurse shouted. The calm shattered.
“Lucía, stay with me!” Dr. Rivas commanded, her face suddenly looming over mine, her eyes wide and serious. “We’re losing pressure. Get the crash cart!”
The room dissolved into a blur of motion. Colors bled together. The roar of blood in my ears sounded like a freight train. I felt myself slipping, sliding down a long, dark tunnel. I tried to reach out, to grab the bedrail, but my hands were lead.
And in that final second, before the darkness swallowed me whole, the sounds of the room crystallized. I heard the metal clatter of instruments. I heard the rip of Velcro.
And I heard Andrés.
He didn’t scream my name. He didn’t drop the phone. He asked a question, his voice flat, cold, and utterly devoid of panic.
“Is the baby okay?”
Not Is my wife okay?
Not Save her.
Just the baby. The heir. The asset.
Then, the world snapped shut.
I don’t know how long I floated in the void. Time doesn’t exist when you aren’t really there. It could have been minutes; it could have been years. It was a black, silent ocean.
Then, sound returned.
It started as a dull hum, vibrating through the floorboards of my mind. Then, the squeak of rubber wheels on linoleum. The distant, rhythmic whoosh of a ventilator.
I tried to open my eyes. Nothing happened.
I tried to twitch a finger. Nothing.
I tried to scream. I’m here! I’m here!
The scream echoed inside my skull, loud and desperate, but my lips didn’t move. My lungs didn’t expand on my command. I was a prisoner in a bone cage.
“Time of death…” a weary voice began.
No! I screamed internally. I am not dead!
Then, a cold sensation on my chest. A stethoscope? No, something colder. A silence in the room that felt heavy, respectful, and terrifying.
“Wait,” a second voice cut in. Sharp. Urgent. “I have a flutter. Here. Look at the monitor.”
continued on next page
For complete cooking times, go to the next page or click the Open button (>), and don't forget to SHARE with your Facebook friends.
