“At a family dinner, I said, “I’m about to give birth.” My parents sneered, “Call a cab. We’re busy.” I drove myself to the ER in unbearable pain. A week later, my mom showed up at my door and said, “Let me see the baby.”

I drove myself to St. Mary’s Regional with my vision swimming and my hands slick on the wheel. By the time I staggered into the ER, blood was trailing down my legs. A nurse caught me before I collapsed.

“How far along?”

“Thirty-eight weeks,” I whispered. “Please—something’s wrong.”
Then everything dissolved into noise and light. Hands. Commands. A doctor saying fetal distress. Another voice telling me not to push. Someone asking where the father was. I tried to say my husband’s name, but it came out fractured. He had vanished three months ago without a trace, and that was the last thought I had before darkness took me.

When I woke up, there was no baby beside me.

No cry. No bassinet. No pink hospital blanket.

Only a woman from administration sitting next to a state trooper.

The woman leaned forward gently. “Ms. Carter, before we discuss your child, there’s something you need to know about the man you listed as the father.”

A week later, my mother came to my front door and said, “Let me see the baby.”

I looked straight at her and said, “What baby?”

Then a man’s voice came from the shadows behind her.

“Ava,” he said, “don’t make this harder. We know what you took.”