Chapter 12 - The Line That Would Not Come Back Up
The monitor had been beeping steady for two days and I'd learned not to trust steady.
I was at forty-eight hours in labor and delivery, still in the gray socks they'd given me when they cut off my uniform. The nurse, Dana, was changing the paper under the tracing when the sound changed. Not an alarm at first. Just a dip. The green line on the strip fell and took its time coming back up.
My name is Elena Morales. I was watching that line like it was my baby's hand letting go of mine.
Dana didn't say anything right away. She shifted the belts on my belly, cool gel sticking to my skin, and tipped my bed to the left. "Come on, little one," she murmured. She pressed the call button with her elbow. The dip came again with the next tightening. Deeper this time. It stayed down longer.
Dr. Patel came in fast, her hair pulled back under a scrub cap, eyes on the strip, not on me. She tore off three feet of paper and held it up to the light. "Repetitive late decels," she said to Dana. "Where's her pressure?"
"Eighty over fifty-four," Dana said.
The room filled in a way I'd learned to recognize. One nurse became three. Someone rolled the ultrasound to the bedside. Someone else opened cabinets and counted instruments out loud.
Dr. Patel sat on the edge of my bed and put her hand over mine. "Elena, your baby's heart rate is dropping after each contraction and not recovering well. We need to prep for an emergency C-section. We don't have time to wait this out."
I heard the words and felt my stomach pull tight again. The monitor dipped. The sound dragged low and my breath caught.
"Will my baby —" I couldn't finish it.
"We're going to move fast to give you both the best chance," she said. "I need your consent."
I nodded before she finished the form. "Yes. Yes, do it." My hand shook when I signed. The pen skipped.
Marisol, the patient advocate, stood by the door holding the manila envelope with my copies — the incident note, the timeline I'd dictated, the request for the security footage hold. I'd asked her that morning to keep calling the mansion office about the gap around the fall time.
I grabbed her wrist. "Don't let it go," I said. "Hold my evidence. Don't let anyone say I dropped it because I'm in surgery."
She pressed the envelope flat against her chest. "I've got it. You focus on this. I'll sit on the paperwork until you're back."
They started moving the bed. Dana hung a new IV bag and checked my bracelet twice. Dr. Patel was already giving orders down the hall about anesthesia and the OR team.
We were halfway past the nurses' station when I saw him.
Julian Hale stood by the double doors in jeans and a wrinkled white dress shirt, no tuxedo jacket, no bow tie. His hair was messed up and there was a red mark along his jaw like he'd been grabbed or he'd walked into something. He locked eyes with me and stepped forward.
"Elena —" he said. "Please. I just had it out with Vanessa. I need —"
Dana put her hand up without slowing the bed. "Family only past this point."
"I'm —" He looked at me. "Tell them I'm —"
I turned my head away toward the monitor pole rattling next to me. My contraction built again and the baby's heartbeat slid down on the little portable screen they were carrying.
I didn't look back at him. "Not until my baby's stable," I said. "Don't let him in."
Dana nodded. "You heard her."
"Wait," Julian said, his voice cracking. "Elena, I'm sorry —"
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The doors swung open. Cold air hit my face. Bright lights. Metal trays. A nurse in a mask pulling a blue cap over my hair.
The last thing I heard before the mask came down was his shoes stopping on the other side of those doors, and Dana saying, "Sir, you'll have to wait out here."
