She glanced toward the hallway, then back at me. Her mouth tightened.
“You should have thought about that before making everything about you,” she said.
Then she reached for the curtain.
And pulled it shut.
The world became gray fabric and cold.
For a few seconds, I could not understand what had happened. My mind refused to accept it. There had to be some mistake. No one could do that. No one could look at a pregnant woman in distress and simply shut her away.
But the curtain stayed closed.
The apartment sounds faded behind the glass. Laughter. A cabinet opening. Someone calling for Jacob. Brenda answering, too sweetly.
I tried to stand, but my legs folded underneath me.
The balcony floor was concrete. It held the cold like a grave.
I curled on my side, both arms around my belly, and whispered to my baby.
“Stay with me. Please stay with me.”
My teeth chattered so hard my jaw ached. My heartbeat slowed into heavy, uneven thuds. The cramps kept coming, one after another, but farther away somehow, as if they were happening to someone else.
The last thing I remember seeing was the corner of the curtain lifting.
A small face appeared.
Jacob’s niece, Lily.
She was seven years old, with wide brown eyes and a Thanksgiving ribbon still tied crookedly in her hair. She stared at me through the glass, and her mouth opened in a silent scream.
Then everything went black.
When I woke up, I was surrounded by white.
White ceiling. White walls. White blanket tucked tightly around me. A rhythmic beeping beside my head. The smell of antiseptic.
For one beautiful, terrible second, I thought I had lost the baby.
My hands flew to my stomach.
It was still there.
Round. Heavy. Warm beneath the hospital blanket.
A sob tore out of me.
“Easy,” a nurse said, appearing beside me. “You’re safe. Your baby has a heartbeat.”
I turned toward her so fast the room tilted.
“The baby?”
“Stable,” she said gently. “You had contractions, but we’ve managed to slow them for now. You’re on medication and we’re monitoring both of you closely.”
I tried to speak, but my throat felt raw.
The nurse held a straw to my lips.
“Your husband is outside,” she continued. “He’s been asking to see you.”
At the mention of Jacob, everything came rushing back.
The balcony.
The cold.
Brenda.
The curtain.
My body stiffened.
“How long?” I rasped.
The nurse hesitated.
“How long was I outside?”
Her face softened with something that looked like anger carefully hidden behind professionalism.
“According to the paramedics,” she said, “almost forty minutes.”
Forty minutes.
The number did not feel real.
I turned my head away and shut my eyes.
A few minutes. That was what Brenda had said.
