Chapter 1 - THE GURNEY BETWEEN THEM
“Move! Her twins are crashing!”
The nurse’s command tore through the trauma corridor as Evelyn Donovan’s gurney swung around the corner.
The ceiling lights streaked above her. Pain ripped through her abdomen with every hard turn of the wheels. A dark stain spread across the lower hospital sheet, but Evelyn kept one trembling hand over the curve of her seven-month belly.
“Stay with me, Evelyn,” the doctor said. “Both babies still have heartbeats.”
Then the gurney rolled directly toward her husband.
Graham stood beside the private maternity wing in a charcoal suit, one hand resting against Sabrina Lo’s waist. Sabrina wore an ivory coat, oversized sunglasses and the composed expression of a woman who believed she had already won.
She was holding a folder from the obstetrics clinic.
Graham saw the blood first.
Then Evelyn’s face.
Then her stomach.
His arm fell away from Sabrina.
“Evelyn?”
The gurney passed between them.
Sabrina pulled off her sunglasses and stared at Evelyn’s belly.
“Your wife is pregnant?”
Evelyn forced her eyes to remain open. For months, she had imagined telling Graham in a quiet room, perhaps with the first ultrasound picture placed carefully in his hands.
Instead, she was bleeding beneath hospital lights while his mistress clutched his sleeve.
Graham stumbled after the gurney.
“How far along are you?”
Evelyn’s breath caught as another contraction of pain seized her body.
“Seven months.”
His face emptied.
“That’s impossible.”
The trauma-room doors were already closing.
Evelyn lifted her head with the last strength she had.
“They’re yours, Graham.”
The doors shut between them.
Inside Trauma Room Three, voices became clipped and urgent.
A nurse cut away the lower part of Evelyn’s gown. Another placed an oxygen mask over her face. The doctor pressed an ultrasound wand against her abdomen and watched the monitor.
“Baby A is recovering.”
“Baby B’s heart rate is dropping.”
Evelyn grabbed his wrist.
“Save them.”
“We’re going to do everything we can.”
“Not everything.” Her voice shook beneath the mask. “Whatever it takes.”
The doors opened briefly as an anesthesiologist rushed inside.
Through the gap, Evelyn saw Graham arguing with a security officer.
Sabrina stood several feet behind him, no longer touching him.
Graham looked terrified.
Evelyn had spent years waiting for proof that he could still feel something deeply.
It arrived when she was too tired to care.
“Emergency C-section,” the doctor announced. “We’re moving now.”
As the medication entered her IV, Evelyn thought of the two unopened envelopes she had mailed to Graham months earlier.
One contained the ultrasound.
The other contained a request that he come home and hear the truth before their marriage ended.
May you like
He had never answered either one.
Darkness closed over her before she could wonder why.
