Chapter 4: Two Heartbeats
Chapter 4: Two Heartbeats
The hospital became a blur of fluorescent lights and urgent voices.
Doctors surrounded my bed.
Someone cut away my nightgown.
Someone photographed the bruises on my back.
Someone injected medication into my IV to slow the contractions.
Dr. Elaine Park, my maternal-fetal specialist, stood between my knees, her face tense.
“Mara, your cervix has changed. We’re trying to stop labor, but the trauma may have triggered placental separation.”
“Are the babies alive?”
“Yes.”
That single word gave me enough strength to breathe again.
“But Baby B’s heart rate is dropping intermittently,” she continued. “If it worsens, we may need an emergency cesarean.”
“Do it.”
“We want to give the medication time to protect their lungs.”
“Do whatever keeps them alive.”
Dr. Park nodded.
A police detective entered thirty minutes later.
Detective Lena Brooks was direct but gentle.
She asked what Adrian had done.
I told her everything.
Not only about that night.
About the first shove after our wedding.
The locked bedroom door.
The bank cards he took away.
The medication he hid.
The doctor appointments he tried to cancel.
The threats disguised as jokes.
The nights he reminded me that no one would believe a quiet wife over a famous investor.
Detective Brooks took notes without interrupting.
When I finished, she placed the pen down.
“Why didn’t you report him earlier?”
I looked at the monitors around my belly.
“Because I was preparing to leave safely.”
“And tonight?”
“Tonight he forced the deadline.”
A nurse rushed in.
Baby B’s heartbeat had slowed again.
Dr. Park appeared seconds later.
“We can’t wait.”
The room exploded into motion.
As they rolled me toward surgery, Claire walked beside the bed.
“Adrian has been arrested.”
I barely heard her.
“Tell me later.”
The operating room doors opened.
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All I could think about were the two tiny hearts I had heard in the ambulance.
“Please,” I whispered into my oxygen mask. “Let them both be there when I wake up.”
