Chapter 2 - Twenty-Nine Weeks
Liam was born first.
He weighed less than three pounds.
Chloe followed two minutes later, smaller and weaker.
I saw them only briefly before the medical team carried them away. Then the room blurred, voices became distant, and darkness closed over me.
I woke two days later.
A nurse named Serena sat beside my bed.
“The babies are stable,” she told me. “They’re in the neonatal unit.”
“Where is my husband?”
Her hesitation answered before her words did.
“He visited yesterday.”
“Why isn’t he here?”
“He said he had business to handle.”
My phone was on the bedside table. There were no missed calls from Dominic.
There was, however, a message from Natalie.
I opened it with trembling fingers.
The photograph showed her standing in my bedroom mirror, wearing my ivory maternity coat.
Her pregnant stomach was unmistakable.
The message beneath it contained only six words.
He chose the family he wanted.
I could not breathe.
Serena called a doctor, believing something was medically wrong. I handed her the phone.
She read the message and sat beside me without speaking.
That silent kindness prevented me from breaking completely.
Later that afternoon, I asked to see my children.
The nurses transferred me to a wheelchair and guided me into the neonatal unit. Liam lay beneath a blue blanket. Chloe’s incubator stood beside his.
Their chests rose and fell with assistance.
I pressed both hands to the glass.
“I’m here,” I whispered. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here sooner.”
The door opened behind me.
Dominic entered with Natalie.
She wore my coat.
That was when the divorce papers landed on my lap.
He explained that Natalie was carrying his child and that he intended to start a new life with her.
He claimed he had emptied our accounts to protect the business from my medical expenses.
Then he said Liam and Chloe were not his responsibility until a court forced him to accept them.
I expected tears.
Instead, I felt an extraordinary calm.
Dominic had stripped away the last illusion.
There was nothing left to save.
So I signed.
He believed my signature meant surrender.
He did not understand that my grandfather had taught me never to fight for property that could be recovered later.
Fight for time.
Fight for evidence.
Fight for the people who cannot defend themselves.
I gave Dominic the document he wanted because every minute spent arguing with him was a minute stolen from my children.
May you like
Then I called Elias.
Ten minutes later, the hospital changed forever.
