Chapter 3

The floral arch crashed down, drowning out the wedding music.

Mrs. Adams came rushing over with a crowd of relatives.

"Stop right there!"

"This is Susannah's wedding. Who gave you the right to smash it apart?"

Ethan stood in front of the stretcher.

"The right my sister and her baby have, since they're about to die."

"I'll pay for whatever's broken."

"Anyone blocks the way again, I'll smash them along with it."

Susannah ran straight to the wedding car and threw both arms around the hood, holding on for dear life.

"Nobody's getting past until you promise to pay for my arch and my car!"

The paramedic checked the fetal heartbeat and pushed everyone to clear the way.

Oswald ignored Susannah and walked straight up to Abraham.

"When I handed my daughter over to you, you said you'd put her and the child first."

"Now the doctor is telling me she could lose both her life and the baby's."

"Are you her husband, or do you just see her as a tool to fund your family and bear its children?"

Abraham glanced at me.

I thought he would at least hand over the folder.

Instead he only lowered his voice and made his excuse:

"Dad, it's not that I don't care about her."

"The accounts aren't settled. If she just walks out like this, what will the relatives think of our family?"

Oswald stared at him.

"Do you honestly not know whether she took that money?"

Abraham's eyes flickered.

Mrs. Adams suddenly clutched her chest and dropped to the ground.

"I can't go on living!"

"I worked my whole life just to see my daughter married off. And she brings her family here to wreck the wedding!"

"I never said she couldn't leave."

"Let her apologize to Susannah and admit she miscounted the twenty-eight hundred, and I'll let her go this instant!"

Susannah ducked behind Abraham, crying until her makeup ran.

"You've already ruined my wedding."

"Are you satisfied now?"

Abraham looked at me.

"Mom's already backing down."

"Just admit you were wrong, and everybody gets a way out of this."

The contraction bore down on me again.

I gripped the edge of the stretcher, the taste of blood filling my mouth where I'd bitten through my lip.

"I didn't take the money."

"And I'm not the one who owes an apology."

The paramedic measured the fetal heartbeat again, her voice noticeably more urgent than before.

"We can't waste any more time. She has to go to the hospital now!"

Abraham suddenly opened the folder.

My ID, delivery card, prenatal reports, hospital admission papers, all of it was inside.

He pinched the mouth of the folder shut and stared me down.

"Sign and admit it, and I'll hand this to your brother right now."

"Don't sign, and your family can go redo all the paperwork themselves."

Mom was shaking with rage.

"You're using these things to threaten a woman in early labor?"

Abraham still didn't let go.

"She's the one who insisted on dragging this into a scene."

"If she dares let the police and her family carry her out the front door today, I won't go to the hospital."

"The surgery, the admission, the birth certificate, you can all handle it yourselves."

"And the child won't carry the James name."

He knew early labor was what I feared most.

He knew we'd once promised each other that no matter what happened, he'd be with me in the delivery room.

And now he was using being my husband, being the father, to force me to confess I'd stolen money.

I looked at him, and suddenly asked:

"Abraham, do you know where that twenty-eight hundred is?"

His fingers tightened all at once.

Then he looked away.

"All I know is that the money came up short in your hands."

I nodded.

"Fine."

"Then don't come."

"And it's none of your business what name the child takes."

The moment I said it, the baby that had been struggling so hard inside me went still.

Too still.

I laid my hand over my belly and waited, and waited.

Nothing.

"Baby?"

"Move for me."

The paramedic immediately pulled out the portable fetal monitor.

A scramble of sounds crackled for a few seconds.

Her face went white.

"The heartbeat's only eighty, and it's still dropping!"

"The baby might not make it to the hospital!"

Abraham finally took one step toward me.

But Susannah grabbed his hand.

Inside the banquet hall, the officiant was calling for the bride and groom to exchange rings.

"Bro, everyone's waiting for me."

Abraham turned back to look at the stage, and his foot stopped.