Chapter 4 - No Ambulance
I did not lose consciousness completely.
That made the next few minutes worse.
I heard every word.
Michael lowered me carefully beside the coffee table because the sofa cushions were too deep to support me safely. He placed one hand behind my shoulders and the other near my arm.
“Sarah, look at me.”
I opened my eyes.
His face was blurred.
“The baby?”
“I’m calling for help.”
He reached for Father’s phone, which lay on the side table.
Mother grabbed it first.
“No ambulance.”
Michael stared at her.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“She’s pregnant and barely responsive.”
Mother held the phone against her chest.
“If an ambulance arrives, the neighbors will see. There will be questions.”
Michael rose.
“I don’t care about the neighbors.”
Erica began crying.
Not real crying.
There were sounds but no tears.
“This is my fault. Sarah became upset because of me.”
Father moved in front of the doorway.
“We need everyone to calm down.”
“Move,” Michael said.
“You are not taking control of my house.”
Michael looked at me, then at the locked door.
That was the moment he realized the situation was not confusion.
They were deliberately delaying help.
He stepped toward Father.
“She’s pregnant. Move.”
Father remained in place.
Michael did not strike him.
He did not threaten him.
He simply pushed the small entryway table aside, opened the second door leading through the kitchen, and came back to me.
He lifted me carefully.
Mother shouted that he was being dramatic.
Father said he would regret disrespecting them.
Erica disappeared into the dining room.
As Michael carried me toward the kitchen exit, my vision cleared for a moment.
I saw Erica holding something black.
Michael’s phone.
She slid it into a yellow document envelope and placed it inside her handbag.
“They’re hiding something,” I whispered.
Michael looked down at me.
“What?”
I could not repeat it.
He carried me into the rain.
Our car was parked at the curb because Father had filled the driveway with his vehicles. Michael placed me in the passenger seat, reclined it slightly, and secured the seat belt around me.
He called emergency services through the car’s system.
The dispatcher told him an ambulance could meet us, but the nearest hospital was only minutes away. Michael drove while keeping the dispatcher connected.
At the house, the living-room camera continued recording.
It captured Erica removing Michael’s phone from the yellow envelope.
It captured Mother handing her a handwritten list of messages.
It captured Erica unlocking the phone.
They knew Michael’s code because Mother had watched him enter it weeks earlier when he showed her photographs from our wedding.
Erica typed messages to herself.
You have ruined this family.
Stay away from Sarah.
If you interfere again, you will regret it.
Then she deleted the outgoing messages from Michael’s phone while preserving them on hers.
Father printed screenshots from Erica’s laptop.
Mother practiced her statement aloud.
“He became violent when we tried to protect Sarah.”
Erica asked, “What if Sarah remembers?”
Mother replied, “She always doubts herself.”
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Then Erica crouched beside the sofa and hid the gray envelope.
The camera saw everything.
