Chapter 4 - GRACE
I woke beneath fluorescent lights.
My throat burned.
My abdomen felt as though it had been cut open and filled with fire.
A machine beeped steadily beside my bed.
For several seconds, I could not remember where I was.
Then I looked down.
My stomach was no longer round.
Panic struck so hard that I tried to sit up.
A nurse hurried toward me.
“Anna, don’t move.”
“My baby.”
“Where is my baby?”
The nurse pressed a hand gently against my shoulder.
“She is alive.”
The room blurred with tears.
“She was delivered by emergency cesarean section at 7:36 p.m.”
“She weighs three pounds and two ounces.”
“She is in the neonatal intensive care unit.”
I gripped the blanket.
“Can I see her?”
“As soon as the doctor clears you.”
“Was she hurt?”
The nurse hesitated.
“She experienced distress from a partial placental abruption.”
“She is breathing with assistance.”
“The next twenty-four hours will be important.”
The door opened.
A tall man entered wearing a dark suit beneath a winter coat.
His hair had turned almost completely silver since I had last seen him.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Chief Justice Nathaniel Hale could silence a courtroom with one raised hand.
Now he stood at the foot of my hospital bed looking like a father who did not know whether his daughter would let him come closer.
“Anna.”
His voice cracked.
I had not heard that sound since my mother’s funeral.
“You came.”
“I should have come years ago.”
He crossed the room.
When he took my hand, I realized his fingers were trembling.
“I’m sorry.”
“I thought staying away was what you wanted.”
“It was.”
I looked toward the dark window.
“I wanted a life where nobody cared whose daughter I was.”
“I wanted to earn trust without your name.”
“I wanted a husband who loved Anna, not access to the Hale family.”
My father closed his eyes.
“And you found a man who believed Anna had no family at all.”
The truth hurt more than the incision.
David had loved the version of me he could control.
A woman with no powerful parents.
No siblings.
No loud relatives.
No one to notice when she stopped calling.
The nurse adjusted my medication.
My father remained beside me.
“David has not been arrested.”
I turned toward him.
“Why not?”
“The investigators are gathering evidence.”
“Your recording and Evan’s video are being reviewed.”
“David claims his mother pushed you only after you attacked her.”
I laughed once, then winced from the pain.
“Of course he does.”
My father leaned closer.
“I need you to understand something.”
“I cannot use my office to punish him.”
“I will not make a call to a prosecutor.”
“I will not tell a judge what to do.”
I studied his face.
“Then why are you here?”
“Because I am your father.”
He squeezed my hand.
“And because I know how men like David manipulate systems.”
The door opened again.
A doctor entered with a tablet.
Her expression told me something had changed.
May you like
“Mrs. Whitmore.”
“Your daughter’s oxygen levels are falling.”
