The Doctor's Wife
[Mommy, don’t call him.]
I flinched, thinking the pain was making me hallucinate. But the thought was too clear, too specific. And it had a reason.
[Daddy’s with her. The girl he never got over. If he comes to you now, she’ll die in the storm.]
My blood ran cold. On the other end of the line, my husband’s voice, smooth and professional, finally came through.
“Is this an emergency, Claire? I’m a little busy.”
[He’ll kill us, Mommy. He’ll let us die to make it up to her.]
The tiny, frantic voice in my skull sent a tremor of pure animal fear through me. I found my own voice, making it flat, unemotional.
“No. It’s nothing. I can handle it myself.”
Let him stay with his ghost.
I was choosing to trust my child.
1
After I hung up, the shriek of the wind outside intensified, the sound of a beast trying to claw its way in. The floor-to-ceiling windows in our penthouse living room, a feature Ethan had been so proud of, were bowing inward, the glass warping like a sheet of plastic wrap under the assault of the Category 5 winds.
I stared at them, a primal dread coiling in my gut. Another contraction, this one a low, grinding pressure, pulled my focus downward. I clutched my belly, trying to heave myself off the couch to get the hospital bag I should have packed weeks ago.
The small, urgent voice returned, clearer this time.
[Mommy, get out of the living room! Now! Daddy let Ava talk him into this apartment, but he cheaped out on the glass. It’s not rated for a storm like this. It’s going to break!]
A jolt of adrenaline shot through me. There was no time to question it. Driven by pure instinct, I half-crawled, half-dragged my heavy body toward the small, windowless guest bathroom behind the building’s main support wall.
I had just managed to pull my weight inside, my breath coming in ragged gasps, when the world behind me exploded.
BOOM!
I whipped my head around to see the entire wall of windows disintegrate, sucked out into the storm as if by a giant’s hand. A tidal wave of glass shards and torrential rain blasted into our home, instantly shredding furniture, art, our entire life together, into a maelstrom of debris.
My strength gave out. I collapsed onto the cold tile, the phone slipping from my sweaty palm.
A sharp, tearing pain ripped through my abdomen. A moment later, a warm gush of fluid soaked through my leggings.
My water had broken.
[I’m sorry, Mommy… I think… I think I’m coming out.]
The baby’s voice was thin with fear, laced with a sob. I remembered a video from a birthing class—once your water breaks, you don’t move. I bit my lip until I tasted blood, fumbling for the phone, my fingers slick with amniotic fluid. I managed to dial 911.
“911, what is your emergency?” a calm dispatcher’s voice said over the chaos.
I steadied my breath and gave her the address.
There was a pause. Her tone shifted. “Ma’am, are you Dr. Ethan Cole’s wife? I’m transferring you to Dr. Evans in the ER. He’s coordinating our storm response and knows your area best.”
Mark Evans. Ethan’s best friend, the hospital’s head of emergency medicine. A wave of relief washed over me. I was saved.
The call connected instantly. “Claire, what the hell?” Mark’s voice was sharp, impatient. “Ethan already gave me a heads-up. Stop messing around. You need to cut it out.”
My heart stopped.
It wasn’t a misunderstanding. It wasn’t a hallucination. Ethan truly believed my call for help was just a petty, jealous game.
Remembering my baby’s warning, a new wave of fear, colder and sharper than any contraction, washed over me. “I’m not,” I begged, my voice cracking. “My water broke, Mark. Please, you have to send someone.”
He scoffed. “In this weather? Are you serious? Besides, every ambulance in the city is on standby for critical emergencies. Ethan told me you were fine, just looking for attention.”
His voice dripped with condescension. “We’re in the middle of a natural disaster, Claire. Medical resources are stretched to the limit. Don’t waste them because you’re feeling jealous.”
Click.
He hung up without a second thought.
I stared at the dark screen, the last flicker of hope extinguished. The hurricane slammed against the flimsy bathroom door, again and again. With every gush of fluid, I could feel my body’s warmth seeping away, taking my baby’s with it.
I placed a hand on my belly, no longer feeling the familiar, reassuring kicks. I had to get up. I had to crawl out of this death trap if I had to.
But as I tried to move, a contraction of unimaginable force seized me. The world went black, and I fell hard against the wet tile, the impact jarring every bone in my body.
I was lying in a spreading pool of my own fluids and blood.
I didn’t have the strength to get up again.
2
[Mommy, don’t give up. Post in the residents’ group chat. Ask for help!]
On the edge of consciousness, the tiny voice sparked back to life. It was the last thread I had to hold onto. With trembling fingers, I found my phone, my vision blurring the blood smeared across the screen. I opened the building’s Facebook group.
“This is Claire Cole in Penthouse 1901 in Tower 12. I’m pregnant and my water just broke. Is there a doctor in the building? Please, help me and my baby.” I added, “The living room windows are gone. I’m trapped in the guest bathroom.”
The response was immediate.
“Oh my God! In this storm!”
“I can’t help, but I’ve already called 911 and the fire department rescue squad for you. Sister, you have to hang on!”
“Don’t be scared, honey! We’re your neighbors, we’ll figure something out!”
A flood of messages poured in. Then a voice message from a man whose profile picture was of him in military fatigues. His voice was calm and steady.
“This is Dave from Tower 11. I’m a combat vet. When the eye of the storm passes over, I’m going over. Any other able-bodied men want to come with me?”
The group went silent for a second, then erupted.
“I’m in.”
“Count me in.”
“My husband will go!”
Tears I didn’t know I had left streamed down my face. In my darkest moment, strangers were offering me the hope my own husband had denied.
I don’t know how long I lay there, but eventually, the apocalyptic roar outside ceased, replaced by an eerie, deafening silence.
The eye of the storm.
At that exact moment, I heard the frantic pounding of footsteps outside my apartment door.
“Claire? Are you okay? We’re here to get you out!”
I choked back a sob. “I’m okay!” I yelled, my voice hoarse.
“Roger that! We’re breaking down the door!” the man shouted back.
CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!
With a final, deafening boom, the reinforced steel door was smashed open.
Several figures rushed in, led by Dave, the retired Marine. His face was grim, but when his eyes fell on the pool of blood beneath me, his expression turned to one of alarm.
“Shit. Okay, find a plank, something sturdy! We need to carry her down!”
Hands were all over me, carefully lifting me onto what looked like a splintered piece of a door. As they carried me through the wreckage of my home, my gaze fell on the entryway.
On the console table, the glass on our wedding photo was shattered. But the picture itself was untouched. Ethan had his arm around me, his smile so full of warmth and adoration it looked like he was holding the most precious thing in the universe.
What a fucking joke.
I stared at his lying, hypocritical smile, and a pain sharper than any contraction squeezed my heart.
[Don’t look at him, Mommy. He thinks you’re messy.]
The baby’s tearful voice cut through my haze, severing the last thread of affection I had for that man.
I closed my eyes, the heartbreak absolute.
Down in the relative safety of the underground parking garage, the neighbors tried 911 again.
This time, Mark Evans answered the speakerphone.
“This is St. Jude’s ER, Dr. Evans speaking.”
“Doctor, we’re in the Azure Tower garage. We have a pregnant woman whose water has broken! Where the hell is your ambulance?” Dave roared. “The eye of the storm is going to pass any minute!”
On the other end, I could practically hear Mark roll his eyes. He said my name with weary disdain. “Is this about Claire Cole again? How many people did you get to play along with this little drama of yours?”
Dave exploded. “Are you fucking kidding me? We’re talking about two human lives here! What kind of doctor are you? I swear to God, I’ll have your license for this!”
Mark seemed taken aback by the fury. He paused, then sneered. “You want to threaten me? Fine. Prove it. Put her on video and show me she’s really in labor.”
The phone’s camera was immediately pointed at me. A face, pale as death. Clothes soaked through with blood. The undeniable, steady trickle of fluid from between my legs.
Mark went silent.
The neighbors, thinking they’d finally gotten through, pressed him. “So? Can you send a car now?”
“…It’s already on its way,” he said, his voice strained.
But I heard a different voice, my baby’s, frantic and fading fast.
[He’s lying! He didn’t send anyone!]
[Mommy, the access road at the front of the complex… it’s going to collapse in five minutes! If we don’t leave now, we’ll be trapped!]
3
My baby’s voice was terrifyingly weak.
My heart seized. I grabbed Dave’s arm, my grip surprisingly strong. “He’s lying,” I rasped. “We have to use your car. We have to go now!”
My voice rose to a desperate cry. “The main road… it’s about to collapse!”
The neighbors stared at me, confused.
Through the phone, Mark laughed, a sound full of derision. “Wow, Claire. You’re really committing to the bit, huh? You came up with a whole collapsing road subplot just to get Ethan’s attention?”
I didn’t have the energy to argue with him. I locked my eyes, raw and bloodshot, onto Dave’s. “Please,” I begged. “Please, trust me. We have to drive. Now!”
Dave looked at my terrified face, then made a split-second decision. “You heard her! Get her in my truck! Let’s go!”
He scooped me up as others opened the door to his lifted Ford F-150. They maneuvered me into the back seat just as he gunned the engine.
The truck shot forward out of the garage.
The phone line was still open. Mark was still talking. “I really have to see how this little play of yours ends…”
He never finished the sentence. Just as our tires hit the public street, a deafening groan echoed from behind us.
CRUUUUNCH!
The entire stretch of road we had just driven over buckled and then collapsed into a newly formed sinkhole, swallowed by the earth.
Everyone in the truck gasped.
On the phone, Mark’s voice was choked with horror and disbelief.
“You… How did you know that?”
Before I could answer, a pain unlike anything I had ever felt tore through me. My whole body arched, and a hot, primal torrent erupted from between my legs.
On the screen, Mark could see my belly contracting into a rigid peak. He finally understood. This was real.
A doctor’s duty, long overdue, finally kicked in. He began directing Dave to pull over to a sheltered spot, his voice a remote guide as he started talking me through the birth.
The waves of pain were endless, drowning my senses, pulling me under. My world narrowed to the shaking roof of the truck and the bloody haze in front of my eyes. I was losing consciousness, ready to give up.
[Push, Mommy… I want to live… I want to see you…]
The baby’s voice, a faint, desperate whisper.
I want to see you.
The words were a lightning bolt, shattering the fog in my mind.
My baby.
He had never seen the world. He had never seen me. He had fought so hard, warned me, stayed with me, all because he wanted to live long enough to see his mother’s face.
I gripped the leather seat beneath me, summoned every last ounce of strength in my body, and screamed a raw, guttural cry that ripped from my soul.
And then, through the sound of the wind and rain finally starting to die down, another cry answered mine.
“Waaaaah!”
A clear, strong, beautiful cry.
My son was born.
A woman in the car, another neighbor, deftly wrapped him in a clean blanket from her own go-bag. Dave handed her a bottle of water.
As the first light of dawn broke through the clouds, the hurricane passed.
In the distance, the wail of a siren grew closer. The ambulance had finally arrived. Mark was with them.
“Claire, I am so sorry,” he said, his face pale with guilt. “If Ethan hadn’t told me you were faking, I never would have let it go this long.”
I couldn’t speak. I was freezing, shaking uncontrollably. I just blinked.
Before Mark could say more, the heart monitor they’d hooked me up to began to scream.
Beep. Beep. Beeeeeeep—!
The paramedic’s head snapped up. “She’s hemorrhaging! BP is dropping fast! Get her family on the phone, now!”
Mark’s face went white. He fumbled for his phone and dialed Ethan, his voice shaking. “Ethan! It’s Claire, she’s bleeding out! You have to get over here! We need you to sign for emergency surgery!”
The line was silent for a few seconds. Then came Ethan’s voice, laced with an impatient, amused cruelty.
“Mark, you fell for that? She got to you, too?”
“It’s real, you asshole! Her blood pressure is 60 over 40! She’s going to die if we don’t get her into an OR right now!” Mark screamed, veins bulging in his forehead.
Ethan’s reply was as cold as the grave.
“So what?”
“Claire needs to be taught a lesson.”
“Let her lie there for a while. Once she’s had a good scare, maybe she’ll learn not to bother me with this kind of drama.”
Mark was shaking with rage. “Ethan, what the fuck is wrong with you? That’s your wife! That’s your son’s mother!”
“My son?” Ethan laughed, a short, ugly sound. “Who gives a damn about the son she had?”
The line went dead.
I lay on the cold stretcher, feeling the life draining out of me, my warmth and my blood becoming one and the same. As my vision tunneled, I saw them wheeling me through the hospital doors, toward the operating room. Doctors and nurses were scrubbed, ready. Everything was prepared.
A nurse rushed out. “Where’s the family? I have the consent for surgery and the notice of critical condition! We can’t proceed without a signature!”
Mark stood frozen, his phone clutched in a white-knuckled fist. His face was ashen.
“The family… he refuses to sign.”
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