My Husband Had a Child With Someone Else While I Was Carrying His Chapter 04

My Husband Had a Child With Someone Else While I Was Carrying His Chapter 04

An ambulance siren tore through the quiet of the late night.

They rushed me back to the ER at that private hospital.

The doctor’s face went grim after he examined me. I was showing severe signs of a threatened miscarriage, and I had to be admitted right away, or I’d lose the baby.

Cold fluid slid down the IV line and dripped into my veins, one drop at a time.

The doctor came in holding a clipboard. “Where’s her family? Why hasn’t anybody signed the forms yet?”

I didn’t have the strength to answer.

A nurse sighed and muttered under her breath. “Isn’t Mr. Halls upstairs in the neonatal unit with that baby who spiked a fever? How’s he not even picking up his phone…”

It was the same hospital on the same night. My child was fighting for its life down here, and he was upstairs sitting with a different one.

I lost track of how long it went on before the door to my room swung open.

It wasn’t Lucas who came in. Sally sat in a wheelchair with a swaddled baby in her arms, and Summer stood behind her, pushing the chair.

Sally had changed into a clean hospital gown, and most of the weakness had drained out of her face. What replaced it was a smug, satisfied ease.

“Rachel, I heard something was wrong with the baby, so I made a point of coming to see you.”

She had Summer roll the chair up to my bed, and she tilted the baby in her arms toward me.

“Look at him. He looks just like Lucas, doesn’t he?”

“The one in your belly, I bet it’ll turn out this cute too someday.”

She paused, and the smile at the corner of her mouth deepened. “If it makes it out alive, that is.”

I clenched my teeth and turned my face away so I wouldn’t have to look at her.

Summer pulled a gold-embossed invitation out of her bag and set it on the nightstand.

“Rachel, the Halls family already decided to throw a big party to welcome Sally’s baby.”

“The invitation has Lucas and Sally’s names on it. Everyone’s just taking it for granted that this is the firstborn grandchild of the Halls family.”

She looked down at me. “The one in your belly really picked the worst time to show up.”

I stared coldly at the woman who used to be my best friend. “Get out.”

Sally took a step back and put on a hurt face. “Rachel, don’t be mad. I only wanted you to see the baby.” Then she let her body tip to the side, and her elbow slammed into the IV stand beside the bed and knocked it over.

The whole stand crashed down, dragging the water glass off the nightstand, and water spilled everywhere. The needle in the back of my hand ripped loose, and blood came pouring out.

The dragging pain in my belly got worse, my whole body seized up, and I reached for the call button by the bed.

Summer yanked the call button’s cord loose and dropped it on the floor. “Quit the act. Nobody’s that delicate.”

Sally held the baby tighter and looked down at me, curled up on the floor.

“Rachel, Lucas knew hours ago that you were doing badly today. But the second I put a heat patch on the baby, he dropped everything and came running.”

“A real, living child against one that’s still just a maybe in your belly, there’s no comparison, is there?”

A warm rush spread out from under me, and a wide patch of dark red bloomed across the white sheets.

I rolled off the bed, my knees hit the floor, and I tried to crawl toward the door.

My arms gave out, and I fell flat on my face. Then I grabbed the fetal monitor probe that had fallen by the bed, and with the last of my strength, I hurled it at the door.

The door flew open.

Lucas rushed in. What he saw was Sally huddled in the corner with the baby in her arms, shaking.

Summer had a hand pressed to her arm and was screaming that I’d lost my mind. And I lay facedown on the floor, both hands covered in blood, my fingers locked around the monitor probe.

Lucas’s face changed in an instant. His first move was to rush over and put himself between the two of them and me. “Rachel, are you out of your mind? The baby’s right here!”

I lay there in the pool of blood, looked up at him, and out of nowhere, I started to laugh.

A second later, the fetal monitor let out one long, piercing wail.