Chapter 6 - An Empty Room
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When I woke up, the world was dark and quiet, save for the rhythmic, dull beep of a heart monitor beside my bed.
The harsh hospital lights had been dimmed. Daniel was sitting in a plastic chair near the window, his elbows resting on his knees, his face buried deep in his hands.
For a brief, cruel second, my mind was blank. I thought I was still at home, sleeping in our bed. But then I shifted slightly, feeling a deep, burning ache across my lower abdomen, and the terrible memory came crashing back like a tidal wave.
I reached down with a trembling hand and touched my stomach.
It was flat.
The heavy, wonderful bump that had been growing for eight months was gone. My womb was entirely empty.
"Daniel?" I choked out, my voice raw.
Daniel’s head snapped up. His eyes were red, swollen, and filled with a pain so deep it looked like death itself. He didn't say a word. He just stood up slowly and walked toward the bed.
"No..." I whimpered, shaking my head violently back and forth. "No, Daniel, tell me no!"
"Emily..." he whispered, his voice completely breaking.
"No! No, no, no!" I screamed, pulling the thin hospital blanket over my face as a sound came out of me that didn't sound human.
Our son was gone.
Oliver James—the baby boy we had spent months dreaming about, the baby whose nursery was painted a soft sage green, the baby whose tiny clothes were already folded in his drawers—was dead.
The doctor had performed an emergency C-section, but the blunt trauma from Margaret's kick had caused a catastrophic placental abruption. He had bled out before they could get him out.
Daniel climbed onto the edge of the narrow hospital bed, wrapping his arms around me as I sobbed hysterically into his chest.
"I'm so sorry," Daniel kept repeating, weeping into my hair. "I'm so, so sorry, Emily..."
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I pounded my weak fists against his chest in pure, unadulterated grief. "Why did we go there?! I told you I didn't want to go! Why did you make me go to her house?!"
Daniel didn't defend himself. He just took the blow, tears streaming down his cheeks, carrying the crushing weight of a guilt that would haunt him for the rest of his life.
