PART 3
David swallowed.
Sylvia stepped closer.
“David, hang up. This is ridiculous.”
The voice came through again.
“I said put Anna on the phone.”
David stared at the speaker.
Something about that voice had changed the entire atmosphere in the kitchen.
The guests in the dining room had stopped laughing.
One of David’s colleagues, a senior associate named Mark, had appeared in the doorway.
He looked from me on the floor to David holding the phone.
“What’s going on?” Mark asked.
David ignored him.
He crouched down beside me.
“You’ve made your point,” he whispered. “Now stop this.”
I reached for the phone.
This time, he didn’t stop me.
My fingers trembled as I picked it up.
“Dad?”
The moment I said that word, the voice on the other end changed.
“Anna.”
I closed my eyes.
I had not heard that particular softness in months.
“Are you hurt?”
I looked at David.
At Sylvia.
At the broken phone lying against the wall.
“Yes.”
My father’s voice became very quiet.
“How badly?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you bleeding?”
I looked down.
There was blood on the side of my dress.
A small amount.
But enough.
“Yes.”
My father’s breathing changed.
“Anna, listen carefully. Are you having abdominal pain?”
“Yes.”
“Can you feel the baby moving?”
I placed my shaking hand against my stomach.
Nothing.
My heart stopped.
“Dad…”
“Anna?”
“I can’t feel her.”
The kitchen suddenly seemed too small.
My father said only four words.
“Call an ambulance. Now.”
David immediately shook his head.
“No.”
I looked at him.
My father heard him.
“Who was that?”
“My husband.”
There was a pause.
Then my father asked:
“David, is it?”
David straightened.
“Yes.”
“My daughter is seven months pregnant and bleeding. Why has an ambulance not been called?”
David’s face tightened.
“She fell.”
I said nothing.
My father asked, “Did she?”
David looked at me.
“Yes.”
My father’s voice remained calm.
“Then why did you destroy her phone?”
David froze.
Mark, still standing in the doorway, slowly turned his head toward him.
“What?”
David stared at me.
“How did—”
I answered quietly.
“I told him.”
My father continued.
“David, you are a lawyer. You understand the seriousness of interfering with someone’s ability to obtain emergency medical assistance.”
“I didn’t interfere with anything.”
“You destroyed her phone.”
“It was an accident.”
I almost laughed.
An accident.
Everything in that house was always an accident when David was responsible.
My father spoke again.
“Where are you?”
David hesitated.
“Home.”
“Give me the address.”
“No.”
That one word changed everything.
My father’s voice became colder.
“Then I will obtain it another way.”
David laughed nervously.
“You don’t understand who you’re talking to.”
“No,” my father replied. “You don’t understand who you’re talking to.”
David looked at me.
“Who exactly is your father?”
I wiped the tears from my face.
“My father is the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.”
The room went silent.
Sylvia’s mouth opened.
Mark took a step backward.
One of the guests whispered:
“Oh my God.”
David simply stared.
For the first time since I had met him, he looked genuinely afraid.
“You’re lying,” he whispered.
I shook my head.
“No.”
“You told me your father was retired.”
“I said he was a judge.”
“You said he wanted privacy.”
“He does.”
David’s eyes moved toward the phone.
My father said:
“And now I understand why.”
David suddenly stood.
“You knew?”
I looked at him.
“Knew what?”
“That I was a lawyer.”
“Yes.”
“That my firm handles major federal cases?”
“Yes.”
“That I had connections?”
“Yes.”
He stared at me.
“Then why didn’t you tell me who your father was?”
My answer came easily.
“Because I wanted to know whether you loved me without knowing what my family could do for you.”
His face twisted.
“You lied to me.”
“No, David.”
I looked directly at him.
“I simply didn’t tell you everything.”
My father’s voice came through the phone.
“Anna, don’t argue with him.”
His tone softened.
“Stay where you are. Help is coming.”
David suddenly reached toward the phone.
I pulled it away.
“Don’t touch her,” Mark said.
David looked at him.
“You’re my employee.”
Mark shook his head.
“Not anymore.”
David stared at him.
“What?”
Mark took out his phone.
“I just called emergency services.”
Sylvia rushed toward him.
“You had no right!”
Mark stepped away.
“I absolutely had the right.”
Then sirens appeared in the distance.
For the first time that night, I felt something other than fear.
Relief.
The front door opened.
Paramedics rushed through the house.
One of them knelt beside me.
“Ma’am, seven months pregnant?”
“Yes.”
“Fall?”
I nodded.
“Possible abdominal trauma and bleeding.”
“Yes.”
“Any loss of consciousness?”
“No.”
“Baby movement?”
I shook my head.
“No.”
They immediately began examining me.
David tried to follow.
One paramedic blocked him.
“Family only.”
“I’m her husband.”
The paramedic looked at him.
“Then you can wait outside.”
David looked furious.
“This is my house.”
The paramedic didn’t blink.
“Not anymore.”
They lifted me onto the stretcher.
As they carried me through the dining room, I saw the Christmas table.
The turkey.
The candles.
The expensive wine.
The beautiful plates Sylvia had spent hours arranging.
And all around them stood the people who had watched me work until my body couldn’t take it anymore.
No one said anything.
I was wheeled outside.
Cold air hit my face.
The ambulance doors opened.
Before they closed them, I heard David shouting from the porch.
“Anna!”
I looked back.
He stood there barefoot now, his expensive Christmas sweater stained with gravy.
For once, he didn’t look powerful.
He looked like a frightened little boy.
“Please,” he called.
I said nothing.
The doors shut.
And the ambulance pulled away.
At the hospital, everything became bright lights and rushing footsteps.
A nurse cut away my dress.
Another attached monitors to my stomach.
A doctor examined me while asking questions.
“How far along?”
“Twenty-eight weeks.”
“Any previous complications?”
“No.”
“Do you know your blood type?”
“Yes.”
“Any allergies?”
“No.”
Then the monitor suddenly made a sound.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
The doctor looked at the screen.
“There.”
I turned my head.
“What?”
“Your baby’s heartbeat.”
I began crying.
I hadn’t realized I was holding my breath.
The doctor placed a hand on my shoulder.
“It’s weak, but it’s there.”
I closed my eyes.
“Is she going to be okay?”
“We don’t know yet.”
Those words terrified me.
But they also gave me something I had almost lost.
Hope.
Hours later, the doctor told me that the bleeding had slowed.
The baby was stable.
But I would need monitoring.
I was exhausted.
PART 4
Three days after Christmas, I was still in the hospital.
My daughter was stable.
That was the sentence every doctor repeated.
Stable.
Not safe.
Not out of danger.
Stable.
I had learned to hate that word.
It meant we were waiting.
Waiting to see whether my body could hold together long enough for my baby to finish growing.
Waiting to see whether the bleeding would return.
Waiting to see whether the contractions would stop.
And, perhaps most painfully, waiting to see what David would do next.
He didn’t visit.
Not once.
Instead, his attorney sent me a message.
David requests that all communication regarding the incident go through counsel.
I read it twice.
Then I laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
Because the absurdity of it was almost unbearable.
My husband had pushed me toward the floor, destroyed my phone, refused to call an ambulance while I was bleeding, and now he wanted our marriage to become a legal proceeding.
My father took the phone from my hand.
“You don’t answer.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Good.”
He placed it on the table.
Then he looked at me.
“You need to understand something.”
“What?”
“David isn’t protecting himself from you.”
“Then who?”
“He’s protecting himself from what he knows is coming.”
I stared at him.
“What is coming?”
Before my father could answer, the hospital room door opened.
A woman in a dark blue suit stepped inside.
She was in her early fifties, with gray streaks in her hair and the calm expression of someone who had spent decades watching powerful people panic.
My father stood.
“Elaine.”
She nodded.
“Chief Justice.”
Then she looked at me.
“Anna.”
I frowned.
“You know me?”
“I’ve known of you for years.”
She pulled a chair beside my bed.
“I am not here as your father’s representative.”
She paused.
