Chapter Three

The spinal block took effect. My lower body went heavy and distant, like someone had tucked me under a thick blanket from the waist down.

The surgery began.

The OB and her assistant worked on the other side of a green drape. I could not see anything, and I had no interest in seeing anything.

Nora sat near my head with my hand in both of hers.

Ethan stood on my other side, watching the monitors. Every few seconds, he looked at my face.

He did not take off his mask again.

The room was full of small sounds: instruments touching metal, the monitor beeping, quiet orders from the surgeon.

It was so controlled that it felt suffocating.

A nurse broke the silence.

"Ms. Reed, do you want us to contact the baby's father? Even if you are listed as single, maybe-"

"No," Ethan and I said at the same time.

I meant, do not call anyone.

His no was something else. I did not have the courage to examine it.

The nurse looked at him, then at me, and shut her mouth with the expression of a woman who had just smelled hospital gossip heating up.

Wonderful.

By noon, the entire maternity floor would know.

Nora leaned down to my ear. "You are dead."

"My abdomen is literally open right now. Could you not curse me?"

"Maybe you should have thought about that before vanishing."

"How was I supposed to know he worked here?"

I lowered my voice until only she could hear. "Wasn't he supposed to be at Mercy General? Why is he at City Center?"

Nora was silent for half a second.

"He transferred six months ago."

I turned my head so fast the monitor complained.

"You knew?"

"I did not know it was him for sure. There are other Dr. Vales in anesthesia."

"And you did not tell me?"

"You were eight months pregnant. What was I supposed to do, tell you so you could move to Alaska?"

She had a point.

I was in no condition to appreciate points.

My heart rate climbed again.

Ethan looked over.

"Heart rate is rising. Do we need to adjust anything?"

He was asking me.

But his tone sounded less like a medical question and more like an interrogation.

"No," I said. "Just nervous."

"Nervous." He repeated the word, his eyes resting on mine.

Then he adjusted the medication with clean, practiced hands.

Those hands had once circled my waist. Held the back of my head. Linked with mine in bed until morning.

Now one of them pushed medication into my IV line.

"Additional muscle relaxant," he said quietly. "Breathe. It will be over soon."

I stared at the surgical light.

My eyes burned.

Not from emotion.

From the body's natural response to a nuclear-level social death.

Here I was, Maya Reed, a woman who had secretly carried her ex-boyfriend's baby for eight months, lying open on a table while that ex-boyfriend gave me anesthesia.

He had not only found out I was pregnant.

He was medically responsible for keeping me alive while I gave birth.

The OB said, "Almost there. Head is out."

Ethan stepped around the table to check the baby's condition.

As he passed near my head, he stopped for the smallest second and looked down at me.

Above the mask, his eyes looked like a storm trapped behind glass.

He said nothing and walked on.

Nora squeezed my hand.

"Listen to me," she whispered fast. "When the baby comes out, say nothing. Admit nothing. No DNA test, no confession."

She did not get to finish.

A sharp cry split the room.

My baby.

She was here.