Chapter 3

"Mrs. Delgado…"

Dr. Fox opened his palm, and there, resting quietly, was a single white pill.

"Mr. Delgado said you were dry-heaving again just now. Take this. Once you do, you won't feel sick anymore."

The room went dead silent.

Every pair of eyes settled on me.

I felt like a prisoner dragged up onto the scaffold.

I knew it was a losing game.

And yet, in that moment, I wanted to try one more time.

"Reginald…"

I turned to look at him.

"This pill. I don't have to take it, do I?"

Something complicated flickered in his eyes, as if he were fighting some painful struggle inside.

A few seconds passed.

Then he seemed to reach a decision at last.

"All right. You don't have to take it…"

And with that, he reached out toward the pill in Dr. Fox's hand.

But before his fingers could touch it,

a soft, boneless hand caught his wrist.

"Reginald, your wife is being difficult, and now you're going to be difficult too?"

"Are you really sure she shouldn't take it?"

The moment Constance walked in, Reginald's body went rigid.

After a long pause,

he looked at me and let out a long, drawn-out sigh.

He took the pill in his own hand and pressed it to my lips.

"Genevieve, I lost my head just now. This medicine is for your own good. Listen to Connie and take it."

By the time I came back to myself,

the pill was already in my mouth,

Reginald had put it there,

and the cold water had barely gone down my throat when a violent pain gripped my lower belly.

It was as if a thousand hands were tearing at my insides, my flesh, churning through me at will.

Wave after wave of stabbing pain came,

and crimson blood poured out from between my legs in surge after surge, like a stream.

In the blink of an eye, it soaked the white sheets red.

"Dr. Fox, what is going on!"

Reginald grabbed the doctor by the collar, eyes blazing.

"Didn't you say this would stop her morning sickness? How could this happen after she took it?!"

Dr. Fox showed nothing on his face.

He let Reginald vent while hurrying to reach the operating room.

Through Reginald's stream of demands,

a boundless bitterness rose in me.

Reginald, what a fine actor you are.

If I hadn't heard those words from your own mouth,

I would surely have fallen for your tenderness all over again.

I would have believed that losing this nineteenth child was my fault, mine alone.

I would have torn myself apart with guilt, guilt enough to want to end my own life…

In under a minute,

a crowd of doctors and nurses rushed in together.

Constance let out a startled cry.

"How did they get here so fast?"

As she spoke, I felt Reginald grip my hand tightly.

A cold laugh rose in my heart.

They were worried the doctors had come too fast, worried the baby might have been saved…

Dr. Fox said nothing, but his hands moved with sudden force, pushing me out of the room.

Half an hour later, I lay on that all-too-familiar operating table,

and heard Dr. Fox's nineteenth sigh.

I knew my nineteenth child was gone again…

He was so small, and he was thrown into the trash like garbage.

Overwhelming pain swept through me,

but it wasn't half the pain in my heart.

In the end, it was my own helplessness. I couldn't protect him.

I let his own father, for the sake of a woman outside, hurt him so recklessly.

But they seemed to have forgotten something.

Even a cornered rabbit will bite.

For every evil thing they had done, I would never let them go.

I was wheeled out of the operating room, dragging my broken body,

and the moment I came out, the sight in front of me stopped me cold…

The whole vast hospital corridor, dozens of LED screens,

all of them at that moment playing the scene of my humiliating miscarriage from just now in the operating room,

and not only this one,

but every single one from the past eight years…

My hope, my despair, my wailing, my kneeling, the blood everywhere in that operating room.

My body soaked in red, half-naked,

right there, playing like a movie for people to point at, to watch, to laugh at…

Before I could even come back to myself,

a richly dressed woman rushed to the side of my gurney,

swung her arm back, and slapped me across the face.

"You slut!"

"It's because of you, you cursed jinx, that the Delgado family has lost another child. Why don't you just drop dead!"

One slap had barely landed

before her other hand was already raised high again…