Chapter 1 - Red on White Sheets

The pain woke me before the fear did.

For one confused second, I thought the baby had kicked hard enough to pull me out of sleep. Then another cramp tore through my abdomen, deep and sharp, and I grabbed the edge of the mattress.

"No," I whispered. "No, no, no."

When I pulled back the sheets, the white fabric was streaked with blood.

My hands started shaking so badly I dropped my phone twice before I managed to call Marta. She lived in the apartment over our detached garage and answered on the second ring.

"Rachel?"

"I need you."

That was all I could say.

She was in my room less than a minute later, still wearing her robe. One look at the bed changed her face.

"I'm calling an ambulance."

"Ethan first."

Marta stared at me.

"Rachel."

"Please. Call him."

She took my phone, found his name, and pressed the button while I bent forward around another wave of pain.

The call rang until voicemail.

She tried again.

Voicemail.

"Again," I said.

"The ambulance is on the way."

"Again."

On the fourth attempt, someone answered.

For one breath, relief flooded me.

Then a woman's voice said, "Hello?"

Marta froze.

I looked at her.

"Who is it?"

The woman on the phone sounded weak and sleepy. "Ethan's phone. Who is this?"

I knew the voice even though I had heard it only a few times years earlier.

Claire.

Marta's eyes met mine.

"This is Marta Alvarez," she said carefully. "Rachel is bleeding. She's pregnant. We need Ethan now."

There was a pause.

"Oh my God."

"Put him on."

"He's downstairs talking to my doctor. I—"

"Then go get him."

Another cramp hit, and I cried out despite myself.

Claire heard it.

"Is that Rachel?"

Marta's voice hardened. "Yes."

The line went dead.

I stopped asking her to call again.

The paramedics arrived in a blur of boots, equipment, questions, and bright hallway lights. My blood pressure was dangerously high. One of them asked how many weeks pregnant I was.

"Thirty-two. Almost thirty-three."

"Any complications?"

"Growth restriction. Hypertension."

"Placenta issues?"

"Not before tonight."

Marta climbed into the ambulance with me. She held my hand while a paramedic attached monitors and started an IV.

"Your husband is meeting us there?" he asked.

I turned my face toward the window.

"He's in Switzerland."

The paramedic hesitated, then nodded as if that answer explained nothing and everything.

At the hospital, the room filled almost instantly. My obstetrician, Dr. Lena Patel, appeared in blue scrubs with her hair pulled back.

"Rachel, I need you to listen to me."

"The baby?"

"His heart rate is dropping during the contractions. You're bleeding heavily. I believe the placenta is separating."

The words landed without meaning.

"Can you stop it?"

"We need to deliver him. Now."

I stared at her.

"Tonight?"

"Within minutes."

Marta squeezed my fingers.

"Where's Ethan?" Dr. Patel asked.

I laughed once, a terrible sound that did not feel like mine.

"Switzerland."

"Can anyone reach him?"

"Apparently Claire can."

Dr. Patel did not ask who Claire was.

A nurse pushed a consent form toward me. My hand trembled over the signature line.

"If he comes out now," I asked, "what happens?"

"The neonatal team will be waiting. Thirty-two weeks is early, but babies at this gestation often do very well. He may need breathing support. He will need the NICU."

"And me?"

Dr. Patel's expression changed.

That was when I understood I was not only asking about my son.

"You're losing blood," she said. "Your pressure is severe. We have to move."

I signed.

As they rolled me toward the operating room, Marta walked beside the bed until the doors stopped her.

"Rachel."

I looked at her.

"I'm here," she said. "Natalie's coming. You're not alone."

The words broke something open in me because they were exactly the words my husband should have been saying.

Inside the operating room, everything was too bright.

A mask came down over my face. Someone asked me to breathe slowly.

"Please," I said to no one in particular. "Save him."

Dr. Patel leaned into my field of vision.

"We're going to take care of both of you."

The last thing I heard before the anesthesia pulled me under was a nurse saying they still had not reached my husband.

I remembered filling out that emergency-contact line years earlier, writing Ethan's name without hesitation because marriage had made the choice feel automatic. He was the person doctors were supposed to call when I could not speak for myself. He was the person who was supposed to know my allergies, my fears, the way I hated needles and pretended otherwise. Lying beneath those lights, I understood that a name on a form could remain true long after the relationship behind it had stopped functioning.

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I could not fix that before surgery. I could only choose what still belonged to me: one breath, then another, and the desperate hope that my son would have the chance to take his own.

And for the first time in six months, I stopped waiting for him.