At My Baby Shower He Celebrated Another Woman’s Child Chapter 03
I spent a full twenty-four hours in a holding cell.
No phone. No change of clothes. Just a hard bench and the weight of my fear.
Iris was terrifyingly still.
Every few minutes, I would press a hand to my stomach, just to feel for the small life within.
The next afternoon, Graham finally appeared.
He stood on the other side of the bars. He didn’t ask how I was, or how the baby was. He just handed a document to the officer.
“I can bail you out, but on one condition.”
“You have to undergo a psychological evaluation. Until a doctor confirms you’re stable, you can’t go near Sadie or Clara, and you can’t come home.”
I stared at him.
“That’s my home.”
“Sadie and the baby are there now.” He frowned. “Nora, stop making this uglier than it has to be.”
“Where am I supposed to go?”
“A hotel. Your parents’ house. Figure it out.”
And then I understood.
He hadn’t come to take me home.
He had come to make me sign a document admitting I was unstable so he could legally throw me out.
But Iris needed to get out of here.
I took the pen and signed every page.
“I agree.”
Graham seemed to relax.
“As long as you cooperate, this won’t affect the arrangements after the baby is born.”
He said it with the magnanimous air of a tolerant husband.
I got to my feet, ready for the release process, when a savage cramp tore through my abdomen.
I grabbed the edge of the table as my vision went dark.
“My stomach… something’s wrong…”
The duty officer had just stepped toward me when another wave of agony ripped through my lower belly.
A warm liquid gushed down my legs.
I looked down and saw a dark red stain spreading rapidly across my gray detention uniform.
“Please,” I begged, “save my baby!”
The station called an ambulance immediately.
As the medics lifted me onto a stretcher, Graham stood frozen in the doorway.
An officer asked if he was riding with me. All he said was, “Contact me if there’s an update.”
Just before the ambulance doors closed, I saw him turn away to answer a call.
His voice was gentle enough to make me sick.
“Sadie, don’t be scared. It’s handled.”
At the hospital, the diagnosis was swift and brutal: placental abruption.
“The fetal heart rate is dropping. We have to operate now.”
Someone held a consent form in front of me, but before my fingers could close around the pen, my blood pressure plummeted.
As my consciousness blurred, I heard a nurse frantically checking my chart.
“Primary emergency contact: husband, Graham Mercer.”
The phone rang twice, then was hung up.
The nurse called again. Straight to voicemail.
She dialed the second number.
“Diane Whitmore, patient’s mother.”
No answer.
She called again.
Still nothing.
“Keep calling…” I forced the words out, my strength failing. “Tell them… it’s Iris…”
No one answered.
The nurse called six times.
Graham rejected two of them. My mother never picked up.
In the end, the doctor applied for an emergency authorization, but every minute lost was another beat stolen from Iris’s heart.
By the time the operating light flickered on, I was gone.
When I woke up, the room was deathly quiet.
My stomach was flat.
There was no bassinet by the bed.
No crying.
The doctor removed his mask, his voice low. “We did everything we could.”
When Iris was born, she had no heartbeat.
He said more after that.
Lack of oxygen. Blood loss. Delayed intervention. Stillbirth.
I heard every word, but my mind couldn’t string them into a coherent thought.
I just stared at the ceiling.
So this was what it felt like to have your world destroyed.
You didn’t necessarily scream.
I didn’t cry.
And I didn’t ask Graham why he hadn’t answered the phone.
He had already given me his answer.
Sadie and Clara needed him.
Iris and I did not.
I don’t know how much time passed before a hospital social worker came in.
She asked softly if I had somewhere to go after discharge, if I had any relatives or friends I could trust.
She read the names: Graham, Diane, Paul, Brooke.
I didn’t respond to any of them.
“Is there anyone else?”
I stared at the ceiling, and a name surfaced from years of silence.
“June Park.”
My voice was a raw, barely audible rasp.
“She was my college roommate. Her number should still be the same.”
The social worker made the call for me.
An hour later, the hospital room door was thrown open.
June’s hair was a mess, two buttons on her coat fastened wrong, as if she’d pulled it on in the dark. She must have run all the way from the parking lot.
She rushed to my bedside, took my ice-cold hand in hers, and tears immediately spilled down her cheeks.
“Nora. It’s me. I’m here.”