Chapter 5 - The Wall
Caleb shoved Ethan hard against the hospital corridor wall.
“You don't get to be here,” Caleb growled, his voice low and dangerous.
“She is my wife,” Ethan snapped, trying to push past him.
“She is having my son.”
Caleb did not budge an inch.
“She signed a medical proxy two hours ago,” Caleb stated coldly.
“You have absolutely no legal right to step through those doors.”
Ethan stared at him, the reality of the situation finally sinking in.
Norah had systematically erased him from her life.
“Please,” Ethan begged, his arrogant facade finally crumbling.
“Just tell me if they are okay.”
Before Caleb could answer, Rebecca walked out of the double doors.
Ethan’s ex-wife looked at him with a mixture of pity and absolute disgust.
“Lily is inside with her,” Rebecca said.
“Your daughter is holding your wife’s hand because you couldn't be trusted to do it.”
Ethan buried his face in his hands, sliding slowly down the wall until he hit the floor.
Inside the delivery room, Norah was fighting a losing battle.
The pain was blinding, wrapping around her spine like a vice.
“Her blood pressure is spiking dangerously high,” the attending doctor warned.
“She’s developing preeclampsia.”
Lily stood by the bed, stroking Norah’s damp hair.
“You’re doing great,” Lily whispered, trying to sound brave.
Norah squeezed Lily’s hand so hard her knuckles turned white.
“If something happens to me,” Norah gasped between heavy breaths.
“Don't let him take the baby.”
“Nothing is going to happen to you,” Lily promised, crying openly.
The heart monitor suddenly emitted a long, terrifying, high-pitched alarm.
“Fetal distress!” a nurse shouted, rushing to the bedside.
“The baby’s heart rate is plummeting.”
The doctor looked at Norah with grim urgency.
“We have to do an emergency C-section right now, or we are going to lose him.”
Norah nodded frantically, tears blurring her vision.
They rapidly wheeled her bed down the hallway toward the operating theater.
Through the heavy glass doors, she caught a glimpse of Ethan sitting on the floor.
He looked up, their eyes meeting for a fraction of a second.
Then the doors swung shut.
The anesthesiologist placed a mask over Norah’s face.
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She counted backward from ten, the darkness quickly pulling her under.
Just before she lost consciousness, the doctor made a sharp, panicked sound.
