Chapter thirty-seven
Breaking Points
Lena
The magnesium sulfate makes everything feel like I'm swimming through honey—thoughts slow, movements slower, even blinking takes effort. But the baby's heartbeat on the monitor keeps me anchored: 165 beats per minute, too fast but steady. Alive. Still mine, at least for now.
Four days since the bleeding stopped. Four days of bedrest, of careful movements, of measuring my life in milliliters of urine output and blood pressure readings. Four days since I mouthed "please" to Zane through the glass, though I still don't know what I was begging for.
The room smells like industrial laundry and the particular staleness of recycled air. My skin feels grimy despite thebed baths, and I can taste the metallic residue of too many medications. The mag makes me flush hot, then cold, sweat pooling in uncomfortable places while my hands shake from dehydration the IV can't quite fix.
"Your blood pressure's better," Dr. Morrison says, checking the automatic cuff's latest reading. "120 over 78. Much improved."
"Can I—"
"No. Whatever you're about to ask, no. No walking except to the bathroom. No visitors who raise your heart rate. No news about the outside world. You're a human incubator now, Lena. Your only job is to keep that baby inside for as many more weeks as possible."
She leaves, and I'm alone with the rhythmic whoosh of the baby's heartbeat and my own fracturing thoughts. Twenty weeks and four days. Every day inside gives our child a better chance. At twenty-four weeks, the survival rate jumps to 60%. At twenty-eight weeks, 90%. Eight more weeks of this medical purgatory, of existing in suspended animation while the world burns outside.
My phone buzzes. A text from a number I don't recognize:
This is Tommy. Zane doesn't know I'm texting. The war stopped. Both sides holding positions but no new violence. He's respecting your need for space. Just thought you should know.
I delete it immediately, but the words stick like splinters. The war stopped. Because of the baby? Because of Zane? Because even violence exhausts itself eventually?
A knock interrupts my spiraling. Sister Margaret enters—the nun who took us in after our parents died, though I haven't been to confession in months. She still smells like church incense and the particular soap they use at the convent. Comfort and guilt mixed into one tiny Irish woman.
"Heard you were having a time of it," she says, pulling the visitor's chair close. Her accent turns 'time' into 'toime,' soft and musical.
"Sister, I can't—"
"Hush. I'm not here for confession, child. Though Lord knows you could use it." She eyes the monitor, the IV poles, the evidence of medical crisis. "Twenty weeks is early."
"Too early."
"Aye. But sometimes the smallest seeds grow the strongest trees, given the right soil." She takes my hand, careful of the IV. "I called Tommy to check on you—the boy's been beside himself with worry. He mentioned your young man's been sleeping in the waiting room. Four days now. Showering in the staff locker room when the nurses take pity."
"He's not my—"
"No? Then what is he? The father of your child who betrayed your trust so fundamentally you nearly miscarried from the shock?" Her directness cuts through the mag fog. "Or the man who's stopped a war to keep you calm enough to carry to term?"
"Both. Neither. I don't know."
"The surveillance was wrong," she says simply. "Violation dressed as protection. Tommy told me about it when I called—said you'd discovered something awful. But I've seen him these four days. He's not eating, barely sleeping. Tommy brings him food he doesn't touch. He stands at your window when he thinks you're sleeping, just... watching. But different from before. Like he's memorizing you in case you disappear."
"Good. Let him suffer."
"Oh, child. He is. But that's not what I'm asking. I'm asking if his suffering helps your healing. If his pain eases yours. If watching him waste away through that window makes your baby stronger."
The monitor beeps—baby's heart rate jumping to 175. Sister Margaret eyes it knowingly.
"Your brother came yesterday," she says quietly, and I feel my whole body tense. "While you were sleeping. Stood in the doorway for twenty minutes, just looking at you. At the monitors. At what he's done."
"He didn't—"
"No, didn't come in. Couldn't, I think. The weight of it—seeing you like this, knowing his part in it—it broke something in him. I've known that boy since he was twelve, angry and scared after your parents died. Never seen him cry like that." She adjusts her habit. "He left this."
She pulls out a small envelope, Miguel's careful handwriting spelling my name.
