Chapter 3 - The Early Delivery
Leah barely slept that night.
Every time footsteps stopped outside the room, she opened her eyes.
Every time a nurse entered, she checked the badge before allowing anyone near her.
At four seventeen in the morning, pain tore through her abdomen.
This wasn’t the dull pressure she had felt earlier.
It was sharp.
Immediate.
Wrong.
Leah grabbed the bedrail.
“Simone.”
The woman near the window sat up instantly.
“What?”
“I think something’s happening.”
Another pain struck.
Leah gasped.
Simone hit the call button.
Mae appeared less than a minute later.
One look at Leah’s face erased every trace of calm from hers.
“Where does it hurt?”
“Everywhere.”
Mae checked the monitor.
Her expression changed.
“Leah, I need you to stay still.”
“Why?”
“We’re calling Dr. Rusk.”
Within minutes, the room filled with staff.
Nathan arrived wearing yesterday’s shirt.
Doreen arrived eight minutes later.
That bothered Leah.
No one had called Doreen in front of her.
Yet she was already there.
Dr. Rusk examined the monitor.
“We’re not waiting.”
Leah stared at her.
“For what?”
“You’re bleeding.”
Nathan moved beside her.
The color drained from his face.
Dr. Rusk continued.
“We need to deliver your baby now.”
Leah’s fear became absolute.
“No.”
Nathan grabbed her hand.
“It’s okay.”
Leah looked at him.
For one irrational second, she remembered the river.
Nathan standing motionless.
Their baby falling.
“Don’t let them take him away from me.”
Nathan leaned close.
“Never.”
The word almost broke her.
Because she wanted to believe him.
She desperately wanted the man she had married to still exist somewhere beneath everything that had happened.
Doreen touched Nathan’s shoulder.
“Let the doctors work.”
Leah turned toward her.
“Get out.”
Doreen blinked.
“Excuse me?”
“I don’t want you in the operating room.”
“Leah, this isn’t the time.”
“It is exactly the time.”
Dr. Rusk raised a hand.
“We need to move.”
Mae began rolling Leah’s bed into the hallway.
Doreen followed.
Leah lifted her head.
“She does not come with me.”
Mae looked at Dr. Rusk.
Dr. Rusk hesitated.
That hesitation told Leah more than any answer could.
Then Simone’s voice came from behind them.
“She said no.”
Everyone turned.
Simone stood barefoot in the doorway, one hand resting on her pregnant stomach.
“She is the patient.”
Doreen’s eyes narrowed.
“And you are?”
“The woman reminding everyone in this hallway that consent still matters.”
Mae nearly smiled.
Dr. Rusk finally nodded toward security.
“Mrs. Carver’s mother-in-law remains outside.”
Doreen’s face became perfectly still.
Nathan followed Leah toward surgery.
Before the doors closed, Leah looked back.
Doreen stood beneath the fluorescent lights.
She wasn’t worried.
She wasn’t frightened.
She looked angry.
The surgery passed in fragments.
Bright lights.
Masked faces.
Pressure.
Nathan’s hand gripping hers.
Mae telling her to breathe.
Then a cry filled the room.
Small.
Furious.
Alive.
Leah began sobbing before she even saw him.
Mae lifted the newborn just high enough.
“Your son.”
Leah reached toward him.
“My baby.”
Nathan cried too.
For that moment, everything else disappeared.
Then Dr. Rusk spoke quietly to another physician.
Leah caught only four words.
“Psych consult after recovery.”
She turned her head.
“What?”
May you like
No one answered.
And while her newborn cried across the room, Leah realized the plan had survived the delivery.
