The Baby Couldn't Tie Him, The Lie Did novel · Chapter 9 of 32
Chapter 9: Next of Kin
I woke up to the sound of the baby's heartbeat.
Fast and steady, like a horse galloping somewhere far away.
A belt was strapped around my belly. A monitor beside the bed drew green hills across a screen.
My mother was in the chair by the window, still in her cedar coat.
"She's fine," she said before I could ask. "She's fine, Val. Listen to her."
I listened.
I cried so hard the monitor lost the heartbeat and a nurse came running.
The doctor came in an hour later. A tired woman with her hair in a clip.
A small bleed behind the placenta, she said. Contractions that had wanted to become labor.
They had stopped them.
"For now," she said. "You're on bed rest. Real bed rest. Not lying on the couch answering emails. If this happens again, she's coming early, and twenty-five weeks is very early."
I nodded.
"No stress," she said.
My mother made a sound that wasn't quite a laugh.
After the doctor left, the door opened again.
Mitchell.
His tie was gone. His shirt was creased. He looked like he'd been sitting in a plastic chair for hours.
He had.
"They wouldn't let me in," he said. "Your mother told them not to."
"Good," my mother said.
He ignored her. He came to the side of the bed and looked at the monitor.
"Is that her?"
"Yes."
He listened.
His face did something I hadn't seen in a long time. It opened.
He reached down and took my hand, very carefully, around the IV line.
"I thought I lost you both," he said quietly. "When I saw the blood."
I didn't pull my hand away.
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