Chapter 2
The nurse’s name was Claire.
I had seen her twice during my prenatal visits.
She was usually calm.
Nothing about her face was calm now.
“What?” I asked.
Another contraction hit.
I screamed and grabbed the bedrail.
Claire leaned close while two nurses pushed my bed toward the operating room.
“Jessica Lane works here.”
My pain disappeared beneath a different kind of shock.
“What do you mean?”
“She’s a registered nurse on the maternity floor.”
I stared at her.
“No.”
Claire swallowed.
“I know her voice.”
The ceiling lights flashed above me as they rushed me down the hallway.
One.
Two.
Three.
Each white panel passed like a countdown.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“My husband is in bed with a nurse from this hospital?”
Claire didn’t answer immediately.
That answer was enough.
Then she said something worse.
“She accessed your chart three weeks ago.”
My heart seemed to stop.
“What?”
“I noticed her name in the system because she wasn’t assigned to you. I assumed she was helping another nurse.”
“Why would she look at my chart?”
Claire’s expression told me she already knew.
Because Jessica wasn’t looking at a random patient.
She was looking at me.
Ryan’s pregnant wife.
The woman whose husband was apparently in her bed while their unborn child was fighting for his life.
A doctor appeared beside me.
“Emily, I need you to focus on me.”
“I need my husband.”
“We’re trying to reach him.”
“He’s not coming.”
The words came out before I could stop them.
The doctor looked at Claire.
Claire looked away.
“Your baby’s heart rate is continuing to drop,” the doctor said. “We need to perform an emergency C-section.”
My fingers shook.
“No. I’m only thirty-four weeks.”
“I know.”
“Is he going to be okay?”
“We are going to do everything we can.”
Everything we can.
Four words no mother wants to hear.
I reached for Claire.
“Please don’t leave me.”
“I’m right here.”
They moved me into the operating room.
Everything became bright lights, masks, metal, voices.
Someone asked me to count backward.
I tried.
Ten.
Nine.
Eight.
But all I could hear was Ryan’s voice.
Jessica, come back to bed.
Seven.
He had left me on the kitchen floor.
Six.
He had stepped around me.
Five.
He had thrown money at me.
Four.
My baby’s heart rate was dropping while Ryan was with another woman.
Three.
Then everything went black.
When I opened my eyes again, Sarah was sitting beside my bed.
Her mascara had run down both cheeks.
I tried to move.
Pain exploded across my stomach.
“Don’t,” she said quickly. “Emily, don’t move.”
“My baby.”
Sarah grabbed my hand.
“My baby, Sarah.”
“He’s alive.”
I started crying immediately.
“Where is he?”
“NICU.”
I turned toward the empty bassinet beside my bed.
“Why isn’t he here?”
“He needs help breathing.”
I covered my mouth.
“No.”
“The doctor said he’s stable.”
“Stable?”
“They said that’s good.”
“Where’s Ryan?”
Sarah’s expression changed.
That was the second answer I received without words.
“He still isn’t here?”
“No.”
I looked toward the clock.
2:17 a.m.
“What time was he born?”
“11:46.”
More than two hours.
Ryan didn’t know his son had been born.
Or maybe he did.
Maybe he simply didn’t care.
“Did you call him?”
“About twenty times.”
“And?”
“He texted me.”
My chest tightened.
“What did he say?”
Sarah hesitated.
“Show me.”
“Emily—”
“Show me.”
She unlocked her phone.
There it was.
A message from my husband.
Ryan: Stop calling me. Emily always overreacts. I’ll deal with it tomorrow.
I read it twice.
Then a third time.
“He thinks I’m overreacting?”
Sarah took the phone away.
“He doesn’t know you had surgery.”
“You told him.”
“I told him it was an emergency.”
“And he said tomorrow.”
Sarah nodded.
Something inside me cracked.
Not loudly.
There was no dramatic scream.
No sudden explosion.
It was quieter than that.
It was the sound of eight years of marriage breaking apart inside my chest.
I had met Ryan when I was twenty-four.
He was funny then.
Attentive.
He brought coffee to my office when I worked late.
He remembered tiny details.
The first song we danced to.
The name of my childhood dog.
The exact type of chocolate I bought when I was stressed.
When we married, everyone told me I had found one of the good ones.
For years, I believed them.
Then I became pregnant.
Ryan changed slowly enough that I kept finding excuses.
He worked more.
He stopped coming to appointments.
He guarded his phone.
He started going to the gym late at night.
He criticized the way I looked.
My swollen feet.
My maternity clothes.
The weight I gained carrying his child.
“You’ve really let yourself go,” he had said one evening.
I cried in the bathroom.
The next morning, he bought me flowers.
I accepted them.
I hated myself for remembering that now.
Sarah squeezed my hand.
“There’s something else.”
I closed my eyes.
“I don’t think I can take something else.”
“It’s about Jessica.”
I opened my eyes again.
“Claire talked to the nursing supervisor.”
“And?”
“They pulled the system logs.”
My throat tightened.
“How many times?”
Sarah looked furious.
“Jessica accessed your medical records nine times.”
I felt sick.
“Nine?”
“Over the last two months.”
“She knew everything.”
“Yes.”
“My bloodwork?”
“Yes.”
“My appointments?”
“Yes.”
“My doctor’s notes?”
Sarah nodded.
I stared at the ceiling.
A stranger had been reading the most private details of my pregnancy.
Except she wasn’t a stranger.
She was sleeping with my husband.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
A knock came at the door.
Claire entered with an older woman wearing a hospital badge.
“Emily, this is Ms. Rodriguez, our nursing administrator.”
My stomach twisted.
Ms. Rodriguez pulled a chair close to my bed.
“I’m very sorry to speak with you while you’re recovering.”
“Did Jessica access my records?”
She chose her words carefully.
“We have identified access that appears inconsistent with her assigned duties.”
“Did she?”
“Yes.”
“Is she here?”
“No.”
“Where is she?”
“We haven’t been able to reach her.”
I laughed.
The sound scared even me.
“I know where she is.”
Silence.
“She’s with my husband.”
Ms. Rodriguez glanced at Claire.
“We’ve suspended Jessica’s system access effective immediately.”
“Can she lose her job?”
“There will be an investigation.”
“I want copies.”
“We can provide information through the appropriate process.”
“I want everything.”
My voice grew stronger.
“Every time she opened my file. Every date. Every minute.”
Ms. Rodriguez nodded.
“I understand.”
“No. You don’t.”
My eyes filled with tears.
“She knew I was high-risk.”
The room went still.
Three weeks earlier, my doctor had told me I had signs of placental complications.
I had been ordered to rest.
Ryan knew.
Jessica knew too.
Yet Ryan still walked out.
And Jessica still let him stay.
“Did she see the note from my doctor?” I asked.
Ms. Rodriguez looked uncomfortable.
“We’re still reviewing the access history.”
“That means yes.”
“We don’t know yet.”
“I do.”
My monitor began beeping faster.
Claire touched my shoulder.
“Emily, your blood pressure is rising.”
“I want to see my baby.”
“Your doctor wants you to rest first.”
“No.”
“Emily—”
“I nearly lost him while his father was in bed with one of your nurses. I am not lying here another minute without seeing my son.”
Claire looked at Ms. Rodriguez.
Then back at me.
“I’ll ask.”
Sarah leaned close after they left.
“You need to protect yourself.”
“I need to see my baby.”
“And after that, you need to protect yourself.”
I turned toward her.
“What are you saying?”
“I went to your house.”
My pulse jumped.
“Why?”
“To get your hospital bag.”
“And?”
“The cash Ryan threw at you was still on the floor.”
My jaw tightened.
“I took pictures before I touched anything.”
“Why?”
“Because my sister went through a horrible divorce.”
Sarah’s eyes hardened.
“And I learned that when someone shows you who they are, you start documenting everything.”
A few minutes later, Claire returned with a wheelchair.
I held a pillow against my incision while she pushed me toward the NICU.
Every bump hurt.
I didn’t care.
Then I saw him.
Tiny.
Red.
Fragile.
My son lay inside an incubator with wires across his chest and a breathing tube beneath his nose.
My entire world stopped.
“That’s Noah,” I whispered.
I had picked the name months earlier.
Ryan had barely reacted.
I pressed my hand through the opening in the incubator.
Noah’s fingers curled around one of mine.
They were so small.
So impossibly small.
“I’m here,” I whispered.
Tears slipped down my cheeks.
“Mommy’s here.”
I stayed beside him until my body began shaking from exhaustion.
And still Ryan didn’t come.
At 6:08 the next morning, my phone finally rang.
RYAN.
I stared at his name.
Sarah whispered, “You don’t have to answer.”
I did.
“Hello?”
Ryan sounded irritated.
“What the hell is going on?”
I said nothing.
“Sarah left me ten messages saying you had surgery.”
Still nothing.
Then he asked the question that ended whatever remained of our marriage.
“Did the baby make it?”
The baby.
Not Noah.
Not our son.
The baby.
“Yes,” I whispered.
Ryan exhaled.
“Okay. Good.”
Good.
Like someone had told him a delayed flight had finally landed.
“Where are you?”
“I’m coming home now.”
“Home?”
“Yeah.”
“You need to bring my hospital bag.”
A pause.
“Wait. You’re still at the hospital?”
I almost laughed.
“Where else would I be?”
“I thought they might have discharged you.”
“I had an emergency C-section six hours ago.”
Another pause.
Then I heard a woman in the background.
Jessica.
“Ryan, are we still going to breakfast?”
My hand tightened around the phone.
Ryan covered the receiver, but not quickly enough.
“Give me a second.”
I closed my eyes.
“You stayed with her all night.”
“Emily, this isn’t the time.”
“Our son almost died.”
“You said he’s okay.”
“He’s in the NICU.”
Silence.
Then Ryan sighed.
“Fine. I’ll come by.”
Come by.
Like he was visiting a coworker.
“Don’t.”
“What?”
“Don’t come.”
“Emily, stop being dramatic.”
“You abandoned me on the kitchen floor.”
“I gave you money for transportation.”
I actually stopped breathing.
“You think that makes it better?”
“I had plans.”
“You were sleeping with Jessica Lane.”
Silence.
Complete silence.
Then his voice changed.
Lower.
Sharper.
“Who told you her last name?”
My blood went cold.
Not denial.
Not confusion.
Fear.
I looked at Sarah.
She saw my expression.
“Why does that matter?”
“Who told you?”
“A nurse recognized her voice.”
Ryan cursed under his breath.
Then I said, “They know she accessed my medical records.”
This time, Ryan didn’t speak for five full seconds.
When he finally did, there was no irritation left.
Only panic.
“Emily.”
“Yes?”
“Do not talk to anyone else about that.”
And suddenly I understood.
May you like
This wasn’t just an affair.
Ryan was afraid of what the hospital might find.
