The doctor's voice came in fragments:
"The diabetic ketoacidosis was caused by dangerously elevated blood sugar levels."
"Ultrasound also shows fetal growth restriction and abnormal fetal heart monitoring. We need to perform an emergency C-section immediately."
When I woke up, Athena Sanchez, Dale, and Lindsay were all sitting around my hospital bed.
My hands went instinctively to my stomach. It was flat. Empty. A nurse told me the babies were in incubators.
Athena sat there with a stone-cold expression.
"If you're diabetic, you should be taking your insulin on time. Even if you didn't graduate from some fancy university, you should have at least that much common sense."
I closed my eyes.
"You're right. What kind of medical student doesn't even have that much common sense."
Athena's scolding didn't stop.
"We let Dale marry you because you were supposed to be healthy. Now I see you're nothing but a pretty vase with nothing inside. You can't even carry a pregnancy properly."
"He should've married Lindsay instead. They'd probably have a whole houseful of grandchildren by now."
Her words went in one ear and out the other. My mind was on the babies. Only the babies.
When I didn't respond, her voice climbed higher and sharper.
"Weren't you always so proud of your health? How did you end up diabetic?"
"Did you bribe the doctor during the prenuptial physical? Was this whole marriage a scam?"
I almost laughed from the sheer absurdity. I never wanted to get married. It was the Swansons who forced me, holding my adoptive parents' lives over my head.
I had to admit, though, that during the twenty-some years of the switch, my adoptive parents had loved me like their own flesh and blood.
Lindsay, on the other hand, had suffered plenty growing up in the Swanson household.
But none of that changed the facts. Before the pregnancy, I'd been perfectly healthy. My blood sugar spiked after I conceived. The OB explained that the babies had inherited their father's diabetic genes, and it had wrecked my glucose levels along with them.
If it weren't for the Sanchezes, I never would have developed diabetes in the first place.
Lindsay walked up behind Athena and placed her hands on the older woman's shoulders.
"Don't get upset, Auntie. Stress is the worst thing for your health."
"Let me give you a little massage, okay?"
Lindsay's fingers kneaded gently. Athena's expression softened into one of approval.
"See, Lindsay knows how to behave. Not like you. Either you sit there like a mute, or you open your mouth and bite someone's head off."
"Raised outside the family. No manners whatsoever."
I let out a long breath.
"Dale. Let's get a divorce."
"I don't want a single penny. I only have one condition. Both children come with me."
Athena nearly shot out of her chair.
"Take my grandchildren? Over my dead body."
"You want a divorce? Fine. Get out."
"We don't keep useless women in this family."
Dale's face was blank. Unreadable.
"You're not taking the children. They're Sanchez heirs."
"I'll agree to the divorce, but not for another six months."
"You'll breastfeed both children until they're weaned. Then we divorce."
He walked over to Lindsay's side.
"After you leave, Lindsay will raise them. She'll be their mother."
"You were only ever a vessel. A tool for pregnancy and delivery. You'll do as you're told." His eyes were flat and cold. "And if you don't, believe me, I have plenty of ways to make you."
With that, he helped Athena up with one hand, took Lindsay's hand with the other, and walked out of the room.
Dale had barely left the hospital when a nurse came rushing in.
"Both babies are showing respiratory distress. They're being resuscitated right now."
I dragged myself out of bed, C-section wound screaming, anesthesia still clouding my limbs. I stumbled to the doors of the emergency room and signed the consent forms with shaking hands.
I called Dale. Over and over. More than a dozen times.
He didn't pick up once.
I had no choice but to call Lindsay.
That was when I saw her latest post on social media. Dale was in the photo, grinning from ear to ear.
"Dale says me and our baby are number one in his heart."
