Chapter 2 - THE SILENCE INSIDE ME
Ben climbed into the trench before paramedics arrived.
He did not try to yank me free.
Thank God.
He crouched beside me.
“Can you feel your feet?”
“Left. Barely. Right, yes.”
“Bleeding?”
“I don’t know.”
Ryan stood near the patio.
Ben kept his body between us.
“Stay there.”
Ryan laughed.
“You don’t get to order me around in my own yard.”
Ben lifted the phone.
“I have you on video too.”
Ryan stopped.
Then:
“You don’t understand what she’s been doing.”
I did not care.
“My baby isn’t moving.”
That changed Ben.
His face tightened.
“How far along?”
“Thirty-three weeks.”
Ryan said:
“Thirty-two.”
I looked at him.
“Thirty-three.”
He shook his head.
“You’re not thinking clearly.”
I wanted to kill him for that sentence.
Then paramedics came through the gate.
Two.
Then four.
Police behind them.
Everything sped up.
Questions.
Vitals.
Blankets.
A paramedic named Julia crouched at my shoulder.
“Rachel, look at me.”
I did.
“Any abdominal impact?”
“The stick hit beside me.”
“Did it hit your belly?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Did you fall?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Ryan answered:
“She slipped.”
Julia raised one hand.
“Sir, I’m speaking to her.”
Beautiful sentence.
I swallowed.
“He forced me into the trench.”
One officer looked toward Ryan.
He said:
“That’s not true.”
Julia ignored him.
“Any pain?”
“Yes.”
“Constant or coming and going?”
“Constant now.”
“Baby moving?”
“No.”
Her face did not change.
Professional.
“Okay. We’re going to get you out carefully.”
The fire department arrived for extrication because the trench had collapsed around my lower legs.
They used boards.
Shovels.
Hands.
No dramatic machinery.
Every minute felt like an hour.
Ryan kept talking.
Police moved him farther away.
I watched one officer take Ben’s phone.
Another bagged my phone after Ben explained the recording.
Evidence.
I hated seeing it disappear.
Then loved it.
A record outside my body.
Something Ryan could not tell me I imagined.
When they finally lifted me onto a backboard, I screamed.
The pain came from my pelvis and abdomen.
Julia placed monitors.
Doppler.
She listened.
Nothing at first.
My entire body went cold.
“Again.”
“Rachel—”
“Again.”
She moved the probe.
A faint rapid sound.
Then clearer.
Heartbeat.
I sobbed.
Not relief exactly.
A heartbeat did not mean okay.
But alive.
“Heart rate?”
Julia did not answer me directly.
“Let’s move.”
That was enough to frighten me.
In the ambulance, she said:
“Fetal heart rate is present, but we need continuous hospital monitoring.”
Ryan did not ride with us.
Police kept him at the house.
I watched through the rear windows as the doors closed.
He stood beside our tomato plants.
Mud on his boots.
One officer holding the wooden stake.
Another photographing the trench.
May you like
For nine years, Ryan controlled the story inside our marriage.
Now strangers were measuring it.
