Chương 2
I had required transfusions.
There would be another procedure if the bowel repair didn’t hold.
He kept his sentences short and waited after each one.
I listened without interrupting.
Then he pulled the visitor chair closer.
“There’s something else.”
My fingers tightened around the blanket.
I already knew.
Not because anyone had told me.
Because there are truths the body recognizes before the mind agrees to hear them.
I had been eight weeks pregnant.
Twins.
I had known for four weeks.
I had bought three pregnancy tests because the first one felt too improbable and the second one looked faint enough for me to accuse the manufacturer of cruelty.
The third had been digital.
PREGNANT.
I had sat on the bathroom floor laughing with one hand over my mouth.
Flynn had been in New York that morning for an acquisition meeting.
I almost called him.
Instead, I decided to tell him in person.
That decision had become a month of delays.
He came home exhausted.
Selina called because her car had broken down.
Then there was a board crisis.
Then his mother’s birthday.
Then an argument over a photograph of Flynn and Selina at a charity event.
Every time I tried to create the right moment, my marriage produced another wrong one.
Three weeks before the stabbing, I went to his office with the test sealed inside a small gift box.
His assistant told me Flynn was finishing a private meeting.
I waited outside.
Through the heavy door, I heard Selina crying.
I couldn’t make out everything.
Then Flynn’s voice carried clearly.
“Don’t do anything reckless.”
A pause followed.
“You know you’ll always be the most important person to me.”
I left before either of them saw me.
The gift box stayed in the bottom drawer of my dressing table.
Dr. Reed watched my face.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Vance.”
“Did they have heartbeats?”
He looked down.
“Yes.”
I turned toward the window.
Traffic moved along the street below, tiny and orderly from that height.
A delivery truck stopped at a red light.
A woman in a yellow coat hurried across the crosswalk before the signal changed.
Somebody somewhere was probably annoyed about being late for lunch.
The world had continued for three days without asking whether mine had.
“When?”
I asked.
“The pregnancies were no longer viable during the emergency surgery.”
I swallowed.
“Because of the blood loss?”
“The trauma and blood loss were catastrophic.”
He did not give me the comfort of pretending there was some alternate medical explanation.
I appreciated him for that.
I cried after he left.
Not loudly.
The incision hurt when I cried, so I learned to do it without moving much.
Leah brought me ice chips and pretended to be very interested in replacing a nearly full bag of saline.
That afternoon, a detective came to take my statement.
Her name was Elena Ruiz.
She wore a plain charcoal suit and carried a paper cup that smelled like burned coffee.
“We can do this another day,” she said.
“No.”
“Your doctor says ten minutes.”
“Then ask useful questions.”
Her eyebrows rose.
“Fair enough.”
Flynn had been arrested at the house.
Mrs. Alvarez had called 911 and told the dispatcher she had watched him stab me.
The knife had been recovered.
There was blood on his hand and clothing.
Selina had initially told officers that Flynn was defending her from an attack.
Mrs. Alvarez had told them I was already bleeding on the floor when Selina made that claim.
Detective Ruiz watched me carefully.
“Did you attack Ms. Cole at any point that day?”
“I never saw her until she arrived at my house.”
“Did you threaten her before that?”
“No.”
“Any messages?”
“Not from me.”
“Do you know why she said otherwise?”
I looked at the window.
“No.”
That was the first lie I told after waking up.
I suspected exactly why Selina had done it.
What I didn’t yet understand was how far ahead she had planned.
Flynn came to the hospital the next morning.
His attorney had secured his release after a bond hearing, and apparently being forbidden to contact me had not yet been entered as a formal condition.
Security called the nurses’ station before letting him upstairs.
I said yes.
I wanted to see his face.
He entered carrying white roses.
Not red.
White.
The same flowers he bought whenever he had forgotten an anniversary dinner or stayed overnight at the office without calling.
He stopped just inside the room.
For the first time since I had known him, Flynn Vance looked like a man who had no idea what money could fix.
“Mabel.”
Dr. Reed was checking my incision.
He straightened.
“You can wait outside.”
“I’m her husband.”
Something in the doctor’s face hardened.
“Yes,” he said.
“You are.”
Flynn took one step toward the bed.
“Mabel, I need to explain.”
“No.”
“I lost control.”
“No.”
“I thought you’d hurt her.”
“No.”
His grip tightened around the flower stems.
“I’m not saying that excuses what I did.”
“You just used it to explain what you did.”
He opened his mouth, then closed it.
Dr. Reed looked from him to me.
There had been a conversation earlier that morning about what information could be shared.
I had told him he could tell Flynn.
I wanted at least one truth in that room to arrive without passing through me.
“Mr. Vance,” he said, “there is something you should know about your wife’s condition when she was admitted.”
Flynn glanced at him.
Dr. Reed opened the chart and placed an ultrasound printout on the bedside tray.
Two small shapes floated in gray shadows.
Flynn stared.
He did not understand at first.
Then he did.
“Your wife was eight weeks pregnant.”
The roses slipped lower in his hand.
Dr. Reed continued.
“She was carrying twins.”
Flynn stopped breathing for a second.
“What?”
“Neither pregnancy survived the trauma.”
May you like
The bouquet hit the floor.
A few petals tore loose and scattered beneath the visitor chair.
