Chapter 1

Eight months pregnant, I suffered a placental abruption in a car crash, and my husband, the rescue-squad captain, was the first to reach the scene.

But because of one phone call from his childhood sweetheart, he dragged me out of the car while I was still bleeding from below and wouldn't stop.

"Martha, Milly forgot her keys and can't get into the house. She's crying, she's frantic. In heat like this, if she gets heatstroke it'll be a real mess. I've already called an ambulance for you. Be strong. You and the baby will be fine."

I clutched his wrist and begged him not to leave.

But he wrenched free and walked away without looking back.

We couldn't save the baby.

Half an hour later, I pressed my hand to my flat, empty belly,

and on a cot jammed into the crowded hallway I saw the post Millicent had just put up,

"No matter how ridiculous the excuse I come up with, my hero always comes to save me first."

In the video, she slid the key into the lock with an easy little push,

and beside her, Carl Delgado looked at her with nothing but tenderness and worry.

I took a photo of the notice for the D&C procedure, meaning to send it to Carl,

but all I got back was a red exclamation mark.

He had blocked me again.

Every time he was with Millicent, he blocked me everywhere.

Once, I had made up countless excuses for him.

But today, I couldn't lie to myself anymore.

A nurse called out down the hallway,

"Family of Martha Roman, come here a moment."

I tugged at the nurse's hand.

"I don't have any family. Whatever it is, tell me."

1

The elderly doctor's eyes were full of pity. She let out a long sigh and spoke slowly,

"My dear, the years of IVF took a toll on your body, and this placental abruption was a devastating blow. To save your life, we had to remove your uterus…"

Everything went black.

A wave of vertigo crashed over me, the whole room spinning.

Eight years of IVF.

An egg-retrieval needle as long as my forearm, driven into my body hundreds, thousands of times.

Seven grueling months of holding onto this pregnancy.

Once, just because the soup a housekeeper made me was a little too hot,

Carl beat the woman until she landed in the hospital.

He used to say it to me, over and over, his mouth against my ear,

"Martha, I only ever want to be the father of our children. I know everything you've suffered for me. I'll spend my whole life loving you and our child with everything I have."

And now,

it was this same man who, for another woman,

killed our child,

and stripped me forever of the right to be a mother.

"Oh…"

The doctor shook her head helplessly.

"It didn't have to be this bad. The first responder wasted too much time. Even five minutes sooner, and you and the baby would both have been perfectly healthy…"

Five minutes…

After Carl left, so resolute, over Millicent not bringing her keys,

I held my belly as it cramped in unbearable pain,

watching the blood spread slowly beneath me,

and I waited there for the ambulance for fifty solid minutes…

The whole time, I called Carl over and over,

but each time it rang once and was cut off,

and in the end, blocked everywhere…

Another stab of pain drove through my belly like an awl,

and beside me the doctor's alarmed voice, thick with worry,

"Nurse! Get her to the ICU, now! And contact her family! Her prenatal registration says she's married!"

"Oh, girls these days, so foolish. If you won't let the man come at a time like this, what use is a husband at all!"

Yes. What use was he anymore…

I gripped my phone hard.

In its notes there was a divorce agreement I had rewritten countless times,

drafted and set aside, the urge to pull it out crushed down over and over.

Now, at last, it was time…

In the ICU I watched the sun move from high noon to setting, the moon quietly climbing up.

A kind nurse brought me a meal twice.

Three times I begged her for a shot for the pain.

Near dawn, Carl finally arrived…

"Martha, how are you?!"

Carl rushed to the bedside, out of breath, his knees hitting the floor with a dull thud.

"Martha, why didn't you tell me something had happened?!"

"How? The calls cut off, the messages blocked. Carl, you tell me, how was I supposed to reach you?"

My sigh pulled at my belly, a pain that tore through me.

The room, thick with the smell of disinfectant, fell into dead silence.

After a long moment, Carl's low, hoarse voice came from beside me,

"Martha, I'm sorry…"

"You know how it is. Ever since five years ago, when Milly was in the hospital and you kept calling me, she can't stand me taking your calls in front of her. I had no choice but to block you…"

Five years ago, Millicent was on an IV in the hospital with a cold and a fever.

And on that very same day,

our first IVF baby was lost to developmental failure.

I was so afraid.

I called Carl again and again.

I wanted him to hold me before they wheeled me into the operating room, to say a few words to calm me.

But none of that came.

What came was Carl's fury.

He roared at me down the line like a maddened animal,

"Martha Roman, will you ever stop?! Even if you die tonight, don't you dare call me again!"

The call cut off.

He blocked me everywhere.

Alone in the cold operating room, I said goodbye to our first child.

And now he actually had the nerve to bring that up.

An enormous bitterness welled up in me.

I turned my head to the other side and let the tears pour down onto the pillow that reeked of disinfectant.

"Fine. It's all my fault."

"Carl, let's get a divorce."