— CHAPTER 3 —
“He couldn’t be in the house when it happened.”
The words hung in the freezing, chemical-soaked air of the examination room. They seemed to echo beneath the continuous, high-pitched scream of the fetal monitor.
My brain completely rejected the sentence. It physically could not process the information.
I thought about Mark standing in our front hallway two days ago. I remembered the exact way he had carefully folded his blue dress shirts into his leather weekender bag. I remembered the smell of his sandalwood cologne as he leaned down to kiss my forehead.
He had touched my swollen belly. He had told me to be safe. He had told me he loved us.
He couldn’t be in the house when it happened.
A massive, splintering crack suddenly shattered the red-lit silence.
The heavy wooden door to the examination room buckled inward. The top hinge ripped out of the drywall with a shower of white dust. A second later, the door flew open violently, bouncing off the rolling cart.
The harsh, blinding white fluorescent light from the hallway flooded into the dark room.
Dr. Evans, a heavy-set man in his fifties wearing a wrinkled white coat, stumbled into the room holding a metal crowbar. Close behind him were two hospital security guards in neon yellow shirts, their radios crackling loudly on their shoulders.
“Sarah!” Dr. Evans shouted, dropping the crowbar on the linoleum. He looked frantically at the overturned cart, the blood on the floor, and the flashing red emergency light.
“We have an active poisoning!” Sarah screamed over the wailing fetal monitor.
She didn’t move away from my side. Her gloved hand was still gripping the plastic IV tube, pushing cold saline into my shaking arm.
“The patient’s water broke with heavy meconium!” Sarah yelled, her voice raw and breaking with adrenaline. “Fetal heartbeat is completely lost. She has an open leg wound packed with industrial lye. Do not apply water! We need an emergency surgical suite right now!”
Dr. Evans froze. His eyes darted to my leg.
When he saw the blackened, melted crater of flesh on my calf, the color completely drained from his heavy face. He stopped being a doctor for exactly one second. He was just a human being looking at a horror show.
“Oh my god,” Evans whispered, his hands dropping to his sides.
“Help us!” Helen suddenly shrieked.
The sudden noise from the corner made everyone jump. I turned my head on the crinkling paper.
Helen had completely dropped her cold, dead-eyed stare. The terrifying, calm woman who had just confessed to my attempted murder was instantly gone.
In her place was a frantic, terrified grandmother.
“This nurse attacked me!” Helen cried out, tears actually welling up in her pale blue eyes. Her voice was shaking with perfectly manufactured panic.
She pointed a manicured finger at Sarah.
“My daughter-in-law is having a severe psychotic break!” Helen sobbed, taking a step toward Dr. Evans. “She put drain cleaner on her own leg! She’s trying to kill my grandson! You have to restrain her!”
The security guards hesitated, looking confused by the older woman in the pristine white cashmere sweater.
Sarah didn’t even look at Helen. She didn’t waste a single breath arguing with the lie.
Sarah just reached down, grabbed the heavy trauma shears off the metal tray, and pointed the bloody blades directly at Helen’s chest.
“Get that woman out of my room,” Sarah ordered the guards. Her voice was dead quiet, but it carried an authority that made the hair on my arms stand up. “If she touches my patient again, I will put these scissors through her neck.”
Dr. Evans snapped out of his shock. He looked at the heavy black fishing line protruding from my burned skin. He looked at Helen.
“Get her out!” Dr. Evans barked at the guards, pointing a thick finger at the doorway. “Pin her to the wall and call the police! Now!”
The two guards moved instantly. They lunged past the examination table and grabbed Helen by the arms.
The second their hands touched her cashmere sweater, Helen’s fake tears vanished. The illusion of the helpless grandmother shattered entirely.
“Take your hands off me!” Helen roared.
It was a deep, guttural, violent sound. She thrashed wildly, her expensive leather handbag dropping to the floor and spilling her phone, lipstick, and car keys across the tiles.
One of the guards tried to pull her backward. Helen twisted her body with shocking strength and drove her elbow directly into the man’s face.
His nose crunched. Blood immediately sprayed down the front of his yellow shirt.
“You pathetic little vessel!” Helen screamed at me, fighting like a rabid animal as the second guard wrestled her toward the door frame. Her sprayed blonde hair was finally coming undone, falling into her face in wild, chaotic strands.
“You aren’t strong enough! Mark knows you aren’t strong enough! I did what had to be done!”
They dragged her backward into the bright hallway. I could hear her screaming and kicking the drywall as the guard with the bloody nose finally pinned her to the floor.
I didn’t care about Helen anymore.
Another massive, tearing contraction ripped through my pelvis. The pain was so absolute it turned my vision completely white around the edges.
“The lye is burning deeper,” I sobbed, looking wildly at Sarah. “My baby. I can’t hear the heartbeat.”
“We’re moving you!” Dr. Evans shouted, rushing to the head of the examination table.
He kicked the brake levers on the wheels. Sarah grabbed the IV pole, unhooking it from the ceiling mount and carrying the plastic bags in her bare hands.
“Hold on, Maya,” Sarah ordered, her face inches from mine. “Do not close your eyes. Look at me.”
They shoved the heavy metal examination table forward.
We hit the broken door frame with a violent jolt. The sudden movement sent a fresh wave of blinding, chemical fire shooting up my left leg. The lye paste shifted beneath the dry trauma pad, eating further into the raw muscle of my calf.
I screamed into the clear plastic oxygen mask. The sound was muffled and wet.
We burst out into the main hallway of the maternity clinic. The transition from the dark, flashing red room to the painfully bright fluorescent lights made me squeeze my eyes shut.
The corridor was total chaos.
Other pregnant women in waiting gowns were backed up against the walls, their hands covering their mouths in horror. Nurses were running ahead of us, clearing medical carts and chairs out of the way.
The continuous, flatlining scream of the fetal monitor on my bed announced our arrival to the entire floor.
“Operating Room Two is open!” a voice shouted from somewhere up ahead.
“Push an amp of epi! Prep for general anesthesia!” Dr. Evans yelled back, pushing my bed from behind as fast as he could run.
I was bouncing on the thin mattress. Every bump in the linoleum floor sent agony through my pelvis and my burning leg.
My mind was fracturing under the pain. I couldn’t hold onto reality.
I kept seeing Mark’s face. I kept seeing his warm smile when he packed his bag.
He couldn’t be in the house when it happened.
Did he buy the lye? Did he unscrew the lightbulb in the basement so I would trip in the dark? Did the man who slept next to me every night, who felt our baby kick against his back, plan my murder with his mother?
“Sarah,” I gasped, reaching my hand out blindly.
Sarah grabbed my hand instantly. Her grip was tight and warm. She was running alongside the bed, holding the IV bags up high.
“I’m right here, Maya,” Sarah said, her chest heaving as she ran.
“Is Mark a monster?” I whispered, the oxygen mask fogging with my shallow breaths.
Sarah looked down at me. Her dark eyes were filled with an immense, heavy sorrow. She didn’t have an answer for me. She just squeezed my fingers tighter.
We crashed through a set of heavy double doors.
The temperature in the air dropped instantly. We were in the surgical wing. The walls went from warm beige to sterile, unforgiving stainless steel and bright white tile.
The room was swarming with people in blue gowns and surgical masks.
They didn’t bother moving me to an operating table. There was no time.
Dr. Evans locked the wheels of my examination bed right in the center of the room. People were shouting medical codes I didn’t understand. Hands were suddenly everywhere, pulling at my clothes, taping monitors to my chest, ripping the paper gown away.
“Patient has severe chemical burns on the lower left extremity! Do not prep the leg with iodine! Do not introduce any liquid to the wound!” Dr. Evans barked, pulling on a pair of sterile gloves.
