“It’s done,” his voice drifted back, distorted through the heavy wood. “Cut her off. Cancel the cards. I want her to crawl out of this hospital.”
I curled into a ball, hot tears streaming down my face. The nurse hurriedly placed the baby in the crib and rushed to help me. “Mrs. Reynolds, you mustn’t move! You’re bleeding!”
But my ears were straining. I heard the ding of the elevator at the end of the hall. He was leaving. He was really abandoning us.
And then, another sound cut through the air. Not footsteps. Not the elevator.
It was a heavy, dull thud. Crunch.
Like a sack of cement dropped from the ceiling onto the linoleum.
Mark’s shouting cut off mid-sentence. There was a second of silence, followed by an explosion of chaos in the corridor.
“MAN DOWN!”
“Call a doctor! Hurry!”
“Pulse is thready! Get the crash cart!”
The nurse holding me froze, her face draining of color. She looked at the door, then at me. “Stay here,” she ordered, her voice shaking but firm, before sprinting out.
I was left alone in the vast room, with my newborn son wailing from hunger and fear. I dragged myself back onto the bed, every muscle screaming in agony. I pulled my son close, whispering nonsense words to soothe him, and to soothe myself.
An hour passed. It felt like a century.
The door opened again. It wasn’t Mark coming back to apologize. It wasn’t a lawyer coming to evict me. It was the Chief of Medicine, a man with silver hair and a grave expression.
He walked in, not meeting my eyes immediately, but studying the charts in his hand.
