Those words confirmed what my heart had already accepted. The child I had carried, the future I had imagined, the life I had been quietly building, were all gone.
Sitting beside the bed was my husband, Raymond Collins. His shoulders were hunched, his hands folded tightly together, his gaze fixed on the floor. To anyone watching, he looked like a man crushed by grief. I had shared a life with him long enough to recognize the performance. His stillness was not sorrow. It was calculation.
Standing near the window was his mother, Lorraine Collins, her arms crossed tightly across her chest as she stared out at the parking lot below. There was no sadness on her face, only impatience, as if the entire situation were an inconvenience that needed to be resolved quickly so life could continue uninterrupted.
Time passed in a blur. Medication pulled me under again and again, dragging me into shallow unconsciousness where minutes stretched and collapsed without shape. My body refused to respond when I tried to move, and my tongue felt thick and useless when I tried to speak. Despite that, my hearing remained sharp, and that was when I began to understand just how deep the betrayal went.