My Husband Said My Baby’s Death Was My Fault

§01

Push, Alina, one more big push.

The voice was distant, a muffled sound beneath the roaring in my own ears.

Sweat pasted my hair to my temples, my back arching off the delivery table in a wave of agony that felt less like birth and more like being torn in two.

My husband, Dr. Kieran Foley, stood near my head, his hand a cool, clinical weight on my shoulder.

"You're doing great, Ali," he murmured, his voice the same calm, measured tone he used with his patients at Aethelgard University Hospital.

But his eyes weren't on me.

They were on her.

Maren Lowe, the doe-eyed nurse intern from his department, the one he insisted was a "prodigy" who needed this delivery for her final credits.

His little protégée.

"I can't," I gasped, the muscles in my stomach clenching uselessly.

"Something's wrong."

"Nothing is wrong," Kieran said, his fingers tightening slightly.

"Maren knows what she's doing. Breathe."

But Maren wasn't watching the monitors.

She wasn't listening to the senior midwife's instructions.

She was smiling, a tight, almost predatory curve of her lips as she leaned in.

"Come on, Alina," she chirped, her voice a sickly sweet counterpoint to the sterile beeping of the machines.

"Don't be a baby. Your baby needs you to work for it."

Then, against the midwife’s sharp cry of "Wait!", Maren's hands plunged down.

She didn't guide.

She didn't support.

She grabbed.

A brutal, wrenching pull that ripped a scream from my throat so raw it scraped my soul.

Fire, white-hot and blinding, tore through me.

I felt a sickening tear, a severing deep inside that had nothing to do with childbirth.

Then, a small, fragile body was being hoisted into the air.

My son.

His right arm dangled at an unnatural angle, bloodied and mangled.

A faint, gurgling cry escaped his lips, a sound so weak it was almost lost in the sudden, frantic shouting of the other staff.

But Maren wasn't done.

The umbilical cord was wrapped loosely around his neck.

A common, easily fixed complication.

I saw her fingers, nimble and sure, tighten around it.

She pulled, just for a second, her eyes locked on mine, that same terrifying smile playing on her lips.

The gurgling stopped.

The world went silent.

My son, who had been in the world for less than ten seconds, was gone.

And my husband, my brilliant surgeon husband, just squeezed my shoulder again.

"It's okay, Ali," he whispered, as chaos erupted around us.

"These things happen."

§02

The police station felt colder than the hospital.

The air conditioning hummed a monotonous, indifferent tune, a stark contrast to the storm raging inside me.

I sat on a hard plastic chair, the phantom weight of a baby I would never hold pressing down on my chest.

Kieran sat beside me, his arm draped around my shoulders in a mockery of comfort.

He had been the one to insist we come, to "clear the air" after I'd started screaming, accusing, demanding someone call the police from my hospital bed.

"My wife is in shock," he told the tired-looking detective, a man named Russo.

"She's just gone through a traumatic experience. She's not thinking clearly."

I flinched away from his touch.

"He died, Kieran. She killed him."

The words were a raw, ragged whisper.

Kieran sighed, a sound of pure, theatrical patience.

"Alina, please. It was a tragedy. A complication. Maren is devastated."

That was when she walked in.

Maren Lowe, flanked by her own lawyer, her face scrubbed clean of everything but a heartbreaking, innocent sorrow.

Tears welled in her big, blue eyes as she looked at me.

"Alina," she choked out, her voice trembling.

"I am so, so sorry. I did everything I could."

My entire body went rigid.

The sheer audacity of it stole my breath.

"You tore his arm off," I said, my voice dangerously low.

"You strangled him."

Detective Russo shifted in his seat, his gaze flicking between us.

But Kieran spoke before he could.

"That's a terrible thing to say," he said, his tone sharp with disapproval.

"My wife’s prenatal scans showed some potential issues with the baby’s shoulder development. She insisted on a natural birth against my better judgment. The baby's death has nothing to do with Maren."

The lie was so swift, so complete, it felt like a physical blow.

My head snapped towards him, disbelief warring with a tidal wave of nausea.

"What? What are you talking about? My scans were perfect."

"You're confused, Ali," he said, his voice softening into a patronizing caress.

"Grief can affect memory. Maren is just a kid. You can't ruin her career over a tragic accident."

He was protecting her.

Right here, in front of a detective, he was choosing his intern over me, over our dead son.

He even leaned in, whispering in my ear so only I could hear.

"She's young, Alina. She has her whole life ahead of her. Don't make this ugly. I need you to sign a letter of forgiveness. For her future."

I stared at him, at the handsome face I had loved for five years, and for the first time, I saw the stranger beneath.

Cold.

Calculating.

And utterly without a soul.

I pulled the wedding ring from my finger.

It felt heavy, a shackle I hadn't realized I was wearing.

I held it out to him.

"Kieran," I said, my voice finally steady.

"We're done."

He didn't take the ring.

He laughed.

A short, dismissive chuckle.

Then he slid the ring back onto my finger, his grip like steel.

"Stop the drama, Alina," he murmured, his smile not reaching his eyes.

"You're overacting."

§03

He didn't take me back to the hospital.

He drove me to Maren's apartment.

"She needs to know you forgive her," he said, gripping the steering wheel of his sleek Audi.

"She's not a monster, Alina. She's just a scared kid who made a mistake."

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