Chapter 2
Then Dr. Reed said something I couldn’t hear.
Someone moved quickly.
Another alarm sounded.
And suddenly—
A cry.
Small.
Thin.
Furious.
The most beautiful sound I had ever heard.
“Baby A,” someone announced.
My lungs collapsed with relief.
“Ava?”
“Yes, Mom. Ava’s here.”
I started crying.
I couldn’t stop.
“Is she okay?”
“She’s small, but she’s breathing.”
I heard activity to my right.
Neonatal staff surrounding her.
Then—
Another cry.
Slightly weaker.
But there.
“Sophie?”
“Baby B is out.”
“Is Sophie okay?”
“We’re helping her breathe.”
Two.
Two daughters alive.
I waited for the third.
One second.
Two.
Five.
Ten.
There should have been a cry.
There wasn’t.
The operating room changed.
Nobody said anything frightening.
That made it worse.
Doctors became faster.
Voices became tighter.
I turned my head toward Claire.
“What about Baby C?”
She held my hand.
“Rachel—”
“What about my baby?”
Dr. Reed spoke from behind the curtain.
“We’re working on her.”
Working on her.
Not she’s okay.
Not she’s breathing.
Working on her.
“My daughter.”
My voice broke.
“Please. What’s happening to Emma?”
No answer.
“Dr. Reed!”
“We’re still working.”
I tried to lift my head.
The anesthesiologist gently pressed my shoulder back.
“Rachel, stay still.”
“Why isn’t she crying?”
The ceiling lights blurred through my tears.
“Why isn’t she crying?”
I started calling Daniel’s name.
I don’t even know why.
He couldn’t hear me.
But panic doesn’t care about logic.
“Daniel.”
Nothing.
“Daniel!”
Only machines answered.
I pictured him racing down the hallway.
I imagined him fighting past security.
I imagined him shouting my name.
I imagined anything except the truth.
The truth was that while doctors tried to make our third daughter breathe, Daniel was eating cake with another woman.
Claire squeezed my hand so tightly our fingers hurt.
“I’m here.”
But she wasn’t my husband.
She wasn’t the father of my children.
May you like
She was a nurse who had known me for less than a day, and somehow she showed me more loyalty in fifteen minutes than Daniel had shown me in years.
Then I heard someone say—
