By then, my consciousness was fading. In the last moment before everything went dark, I saw Delia pulling him toward the door.
Despair, endless and absolute, crashed over me.
When I woke again, the sharp smell of disinfectant filled my nostrils.
A wave of pain tore through my lower body. I groaned involuntarily—and someone gripped my hand tight.
"Linda!!"
Mom. Dad.
My mother's usually immaculate hair was disheveled, her eyes swollen and red. When she saw me awake, her voice broke. "Linda, it's okay. It's going to be okay..."
It took me a moment to register where I was—lying on a gurney being rushed toward the operating room.
"Doctor, the patient is hemorrhaging!"
"We may not be able to save the baby. Where's her husband? We need his signature for the procedure."
"She's my daughter—I can sign! Doctor, please, you have to save her—"
"Hospital policy requires the patient's husband for emergency procedures of this nature. It may affect her future fertility."
The doctor's urgent commands, my mother's pleas, my father's furious voice—all tangled together in chaos.
I lay there gasping, fighting wave after wave of agony. Then I heard my father on the phone with James.