He Blocked My Number the Night I Died Chapter 02

I went under.

The water was the only thing that wasn’t on fire. I stayed down as long as my lungs could stand it, then surfaced into a world made of heat and noise. Embers hissed on the water around me. The air tasted like burnt plastic.

Another contraction hit. I bit my own wrist to keep from screaming, because screaming meant breathing, and breathing meant smoke.

Stay alive, I told myself. Not for him. For her.

I already knew she was a girl. I’d found out alone at the twenty-week scan, because Caleb had been at Sienna’s gallery opening. When I showed him the ultrasound photo that night, he’d glanced at it and said, “Cute. Hey, did you see Sienna’s dress? She looked stunning.”

That was my marriage. Glances. Leftovers. Second place in my own life.

It had been that way since I was eleven, when my parents brought Sienna home.

She was nine. Her birth parents had died in a car crash. She had big gray eyes and a trembling lip, and my mother had looked at her like she was a wounded bird.

“Nora,” she’d said, “you’ve had everything your whole life. Sienna has had nothing. You need to share.”

So I shared.

My bedroom, because Sienna was scared of the dark and mine had a better window.

My college fund, because Sienna “needed art school to heal.”

My twenty-first birthday party, which became Sienna’s “adoption anniversary” celebration.

And finally, my husband.

Not officially. Sienna was too smart for that. She never kissed him. She just needed him. A panic attack at midnight. A flat tire. A bad dream. A scary man at a bar. Every time, Caleb ran. And every time I complained, my whole family looked at me like I was the monster.

“She’s fragile, Nora.”

“She’s been through so much.”

“Why are you always so jealous?”

I clung to the edge of the pool, gasping, as another contraction tore through me.

Then I heard a voice.

“Is anyone out here? Fire department! Call out!”

I tried. Nothing came out but a cough.

I slapped the water. Again. Again.

A flashlight beam cut through the smoke. Boots on hot stone. A huge figure in yellow turnout gear dropped to his knees at the pool’s edge.

“Ma’am. Ma’am, I’ve got you. Can you give me your hand?”

I couldn’t. My arms had stopped working.

So he climbed into the water with me.

He was tall, broad, soot streaked across his face, and his eyes were the steadiest thing I had ever seen.

“I’m Jude,” he said. “What’s your name?”

“Nora.” My voice was gravel. “I’m in labor.”

For a fraction of a second, fear flashed across his face. Then it was gone.

“Okay. Okay, Nora. Then we’re going to do this together.”

He lifted me out like I weighed nothing, wrapped me in a wet blanket, and ran.

I remember the ambulance doors. I remember a paramedic shouting about my blood pressure. I remember Jude refusing to let go of my hand even when they told him he had to get back to the line.

“She’s alone,” he snapped. “Nobody came for her. I’m not leaving.”

Nobody came for her.

A stranger understood in two minutes what my family had refused to see for nineteen years.

My daughter was born in the back of that ambulance at 7:52 p.m.

Four pounds, one ounce.

She wasn’t breathing.

The paramedic worked on her tiny chest. I couldn’t see her face. I couldn’t hear anything but my own

heartbeat.

“Come on,” Jude whispered. “Come on, little one.”

Then-a cry. Thin. Furious. Alive.

I sobbed so hard I couldn’t see.

“What’s her name?” Jude asked.

I looked at that tiny, angry, perfect face.

“Hope,” I said.

Then everything went black.

When I woke up, I was in a hospital bed. The room was dim. A TV murmured in the corner.

“-devastating losses in Silver Creek Canyon tonight, including the home of tech billionaire Caleb Vance. His wife, Nora Vance, who was eight months pregnant, is missing and feared dead.”

On screen, Caleb stood outside a police barricade, his face gray.

And clinging to his arm, wrapped in my cream cashmere coat, was Sienna.