Chapter 3 - The Ambulance
The paramedics arrived before police finished separating everyone.
A woman named Kelly knelt beside me.
“Emily, I need you to stay still.”
“My baby isn’t moving.”
“We’re going to check.”
She cut part of my dress away enough to place monitors.
The portable fetal Doppler gave them trouble.
Maybe position.
Maybe equipment.
Maybe something worse.
Kelly’s expression changed.
Not dramatically.
Professional faces are sometimes crueler because they reveal fear by becoming calmer.
“We’re transporting now.”
Daniel climbed toward ambulance.
An officer stopped him.
“Sir, one second.”
Daniel turned.
“That’s my wife.”
“I know. We need your name and contact. Then you can go.”
He looked ready to explode.
I reached for him.
“Daniel.”
He came.
“I’m going with you.”
Police let him after brief identification.
His commander could hear later.
Nothing mattered now.
Margaret stood near porch with an officer.
She was not yet in handcuffs.
She kept pointing.
“I barely touched her.”
Robert said nothing.
He stared at grass.
At blood.
At porch steps.
Then at his wife.
As ambulance doors closed, I heard Margaret say:
“Daniel attacked me.”
The officer asked:
“Before or after the woman fell?”
Margaret went silent.
Then doors shut.
The drive to hospital blurred.
Daniel sat beside my head.
Kelly started IV.
Another paramedic monitored my blood pressure.
I kept asking:
“Do you hear him?”
Nobody answered directly.
Daniel squeezed my hand.
“Stay with me.”
“I am.”
“Stay.”
“Daniel.”
“Yes?”
“If something…”
“No.”
I looked at him.
“Listen.”
“No.”
His voice broke.
I understood.
He was not ready to hear any sentence containing if.
At the hospital, people moved fast.
Labor and delivery.
Trauma.
Ultrasound.
Blood work.
Hands.
Consent.
Someone asked whether I had fallen.
Daniel answered:
“She was assaulted.”
The doctor looked.
“Where?”
“Blunt force to abdomen and fall down steps.”
They moved faster.
A fetal heart tracing appeared.
For several seconds there was nothing recognizable.
Then a faint rhythm.
Too slow.
A nurse called another doctor.
I saw Daniel’s face.
“What?”
No one wanted answer while acting.
Then an obstetrician leaned near me.
“Emily, we are concerned about placental abruption.”
I knew enough.
Placenta separating.
Baby losing oxygen.
They needed emergency delivery.
“Is he alive?”
“There is cardiac activity, but it is severely abnormal.”
Daniel bent over me.
I grabbed uniform.
“Save him.”
The doctor answered:
“We are going to do everything we can.”
They took me to operating room.
Daniel was stopped.
I heard him shout my name.
Then lights.
A mask.
Cold.
The last thing I remembered was thinking Ethan had never seen our nursery.
When I woke, the room was dark except monitors.
My abdomen hurt differently.
Empty.
Daniel sat beside bed.
He had changed out of uniform into hospital scrubs someone found.
His eyes were swollen.
I looked at him.
He stood.
“Emily.”
I knew before he spoke.
“No.”
His face broke.
I shook my head.
“No.”
He took my hand.
“They delivered him.”
“No.”
“He was alive for a few minutes.”
I made a sound I had never heard from myself.
Daniel leaned over.
“They worked on him.”
“No.”
“I’m sorry.”
I screamed.
Not words.
Just sound.
Everything inside me collapsed.
Our son died.
Ethan James Carter.
Three pounds fourteen ounces.
Thirty two weeks.
The doctors said severe placental abruption caused catastrophic oxygen loss.
They could not say whether the first kick, the fall, or the second impact caused the final separation.
They did not need to tell me.
Margaret had done enough.
Daniel cried into my shoulder.
I could barely move.
Then he whispered:
“I called the police.”
I nodded.
“I know.”
“They arrested her.”
I closed eyes.
He continued:
“Dad told them she kicked you inside too.”
I opened eyes.
“What?”
“The camera only shows outside. Dad told them about kitchen.”
Robert.
Then:
“Police have the video.”
Good.
Then there was a knock.
A uniformed officer entered.
Not to interrogate.
To preserve initial statement and tell us detectives would wait until I was medically stable.
He sat beside the door.
Daniel looked.
“Why is he staying?”
The officer answered:
“Your mother has already told officers she intends to file a complaint against both of you.”
I stared.
“What complaint?”
He looked uncomfortable.
“She says Mrs. Carter attacked her first and that Lieutenant Carter used excessive force.”
Daniel laughed once.
No humor.
Then officer added:
“She also attempted to access the security account from the patrol car after being told the video was evidence.”
Daniel’s face changed.
May you like
Margaret was not only lying.
She was already trying to erase what the camera had seen.
