Emma asked if she could speak privately with the doctor. I agreed, though sitting alone in the waiting room felt unbearable. The lights seemed too bright, every minute stretching into an eternity filled with terrible possibilities.
When Dr. Patel returned, her expression had changed.
The calm professionalism was still there, but something else sat behind it — caution.
She ordered blood tests and an ultrasound and told us to return the following day for the results.
That night, Emma cried in the car on the way home. She admitted she was scared.
I promised her I would protect her, even though I wasn’t sure how.
The next afternoon we sat across from Dr. Patel while she studied the scan for an unusually long time. Her fingers hovered near the screen as if she were choosing her next words carefully.
Finally she looked up.
Her voice dropped almost to a whisper.
“There’s something inside your daughter’s abdomen,” she said slowly, “that shouldn’t be there.”
My lungs froze.
She turned the screen slightly toward us. The image was blurry to my untrained eyes, but it was obvious that something wasn’t right.
The room seemed to spin.
Before I could stop myself, I screamed.