My Husband Had a Child With Someone Else While I Was Carrying His Chapter 05

My Husband Had a Child With Someone Else While I Was Carrying His Chapter 05

The sharp sting of antiseptic was what pulled me back awake.

I opened my eyes, and a blank white ceiling stared down at me. A doctor stood at the foot of the bed, flipping through my chart.

“We managed to save the baby for now, but the situation is still very fragile. You need complete bed rest, and you can’t take on any more stress.”

I laid a hand over my stomach, and a single tear slid from the corner of my eye.

Lucas sat at the edge of the bed. His eyes were bloodshot, his shirt was creased and rumpled, and a shadow of stubble had come up along his jaw.

When he saw that I was awake, he reached out to touch my face, but I turned my head and slipped away from his hand.

“Rachel, you scared me half to death.”

His voice was hoarse, thick with the relief of someone who had barely dodged a disaster.

“The doctor said your moods were swinging too hard during the pregnancy, and that’s what set off the threatened miscarriage. No more of this reckless stuff, okay? Promise me.”

I looked at him, and my gaze was perfectly calm. “Reckless?”

“Yeah,” Lucas sighed, and there was a tired, forgiving patience in his voice. “I know you feel wronged, but you can’t just grab the monitor probe and swing it at Sally and the baby. What if you’d hurt him?”

I closed my eyes and took a slow breath.

“Lucas, Sally is the one who barged into my room. Summer is the one who ripped out my call button. Sally is the one who knocked over my pregnancy meds on purpose. I grabbed the probe to bang on the door for help, not to hurt anybody.”

I said every word slowly, and I made each one perfectly clear.

Lucas froze.

His brow drew tight, and he seemed to be weighing how much of what I’d said was actually true.

He said, “Rachel, Sally just gave birth. She can barely get out of bed, so how could she come all the way to your room and knock over your meds?”

“And Summer is your best friend. Why would she ever want to hurt you? Are you sure you’re not seeing things because you’re so worked up over the baby?”

Somewhere underneath it all, he was still making excuses for the two of them.

Right then, the door to the room swung open. Sally came in with the baby in her arms, leaning on a caregiver for support. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and fat tears were rolling down her cheeks.

“Rachel, I’m so sorry, this is all my fault. I never should’ve come to check on you just because I was worried about how you were doing.”

She pushed the baby into Lucas’s arms and made a show of starting to sink to her knees in front of me.

“Rachel, you can blame me, you can hate me, that’s fine, but please don’t hurt my baby. You scared him so badly that he’s been crying nonstop, and now he won’t even take his bottle.”

Lucas caught her by the arm, and his frown deepened. “Sally, you haven’t recovered yet. Don’t push yourself.”

Sally sagged into his chest and sobbed until she could barely catch her breath. “Lucas, is Rachel still angry at me? Is there just no room in her heart for me and my baby?”

I watched the two of them holding each other, and I didn’t even have the strength left to sneer. “Lucas, do you believe her, or do you believe me?”

I asked it quietly.

Lucas looked down at Sally crying in his arms, and then he looked at me, drained of all color.

He said nothing. The silence stretched on and turned into its own kind of torture, and piece by piece it cut away the last thin thread of hope I had left in him.

“Rachel, we’ll deal with all this later. The only thing that matters right now is you getting your strength back.”

He helped Sally over to a chair off to the side and eased her down into it, and his voice stayed gentle the whole time. “I’ve hired you the best caregiver there is, around the clock. Just stay here and rest easy for a while.”

I turned my head and looked out the window.

Withered yellow leaves were torn loose by the wind and drifted down into the dirt.

A part of me died right then.