Chapter 4

4: 4

When I opened my eyes again, I was in a hospital.

Dr. Whitney looked at me, and there was real pain in his face.

"Irma! Do you have any idea how many times you tried for a baby? Have you forgotten everything you went through to have one?"

"Why did you have to wear your body down to this? You'd only just conceived, and now the baby's gone!"

Gone? What was gone?

The doctor's mouth kept moving, but I couldn't hear a word of it.

My hand went to my stomach without thinking. The child I had begged for over so many years, gone, just like that?

Seeing how lost I was, he guessed I probably hadn't even known I was pregnant. He let out a heavy sigh and stepped out.

He'd barely left when my husband shoved the door open in a rush.

The second I saw him, the tears I'd held back for so long broke loose and wouldn't stop. Fragile as I was, I wanted to be held, but he swatted me away.

"Irma! You've really outdone yourself. So I couldn't take his wife to her prenatal checkups, you went and got yourself admitted first!"

"And in a nice maternity room, no less! Do you have any idea what one night in here costs?"

He was about to say more when I cut him off, disbelieving.

"What checkup? A prenatal checkup?"

Zane knew he'd let it slip, and a flicker of annoyance crossed his face.

But then, like something had occurred to him, he lifted his chin, righteous again.

"It's exactly what you think. His wife is pregnant. It's mine. You know Blake was adopted. The Delgado family ought to have a bloodline of its own."

"She's kindhearted. She's willing to have a child so the Delgado line doesn't die out. We should be thanking her."

"Enough. Why do you look at me like that, like you want to kill me? That's not my fault your belly's never been good for anything, is it? I've carried plenty of pressure for your sake already."

"And besides, if you hadn't married in back then, I would have married—"

I cut off his praise of her, staring straight into his eyes, one word at a time.

"Zane. I had a miscarriage. Our baby. It's gone."

Zane froze, then burst out laughing and patted my head.

"Irma, Irma, how old are you now? Still lying like a child. All right, enough. She's not feeling well, I'm going to go sit with her."

"I'll let the fake-illness thing slide. Hurry up and check yourself out. Woman to woman, you'll take better care of her anyway."

With that, he got up and left.

Leaving me alone, clenching the three hundred and fourteen dollars in my palm, over and over.

I don't know how long passed before a nurse knocked and handed me a slip.

"Your family just sent this over from the post office."

I took it and looked. It was a withdrawal of five thousand dollars.

Zane's own handwriting was on it too.

"Her kid's sick as well. Saw there was still some money in this account, figured I'd use it first."

That was the money I'd just borrowed from my parents' home. My mother-in-law's emergency money.

Before, I would have torn the whole house apart over it.

But this time, I was tired.

I didn't say much. I just calmly pulled out the IV needle, checked out, went home, and sold off everything in the house that could be sold. Then I called my brother, who had wanted to take me along with him more than once.

"Bro, that project down south. I'm in."

No hesitation. I took the money from everything I'd sold and got on a train heading south.

Zane went on as always, busy with his good works, busy doing good for the public, busy with her. By the time he thought of me, a week had gone by.

And of course, it wasn't that he thought of me on his own.

It was that my mother-in-law's condition took another turn for the worse. The hospital was ready to operate and found there was no money in the account, and the best window for treatment slipped away. Only then did he remember me, gone a week already.