Chapter 9 The Birth and the Bargain
Contractions returned at twenty-nine weeks.
This time, the contractions did not build slowly like they did during the first pregnancy.
Instead, they were sudden and violent. It felt as if someone reached inside her and squeezed.
She woke at three AM, screaming. The monitor beside her bed began to malfunction.
The fetal heart rate dropped, then spiked, then dropped again.
Cillian was there, as always. For three months, he slept in a chair beside her bed. He read research papers, argued with doctors, and held her hand through every ultrasound. He was there when she screamed, when nurses ran in, and when Dr. Marsh's face grew tight, controlled, and grim.
"We need to deliver," Dr. Marsh said. "Now."
"How far along?" Cillian asked.
"Twenty-nine weeks. The fetal heart rate is erratic. There's placental abruption. The baby is in distress. If we wait, we lose her."
"Her?"
Dr. Marsh looked at him, then at Vesper. "I was going to tell you at the next ultrasound. It's a girl."
A girl. Their daughter. The word struck Vesper like a wave. She would have a daughter, a daughter dying inside her now.
"Do it," Vesper said. "Whatever you have to do."
They wheeled her quickly down a hall, through doors. Lights overhead glared. Cillian ran beside the gurney, his hand in hers, his face white.
"I'm here," he said. "I'm right here."
The medical staff separated the two patients in the operating room. He could not enter. She saw his face through the window, his hand pressed against the glass, his mouth forming unheard words.
The anesthesiologist was kind and quick. The spinal block went in. Cold spread through her lower body. She no longer felt the contractions or anything below her ribs.
The surgery began. A curtain blocked her view. She heard sounds: suction, instruments, the medical team's murmur, and Dr. Marsh's calm, direct voice.
The pressure felt strange, a tugging and pulling, like something moving inside her. She gripped the table, knuckles white.
Then silence.
A long, terrible silence.
Then a sound. Thin, high, and a cry. Not a wail, but a squeak. Like a kitten. Like a bird. It was like something too small and new to make a real sound.
"Is she okay?" Vesper asked. "Is she breathing?"
"She's breathing," Dr. Marsh said. "She's small, very small, but she's breathing."
They held the baby up over the curtain. A flash, a glimpse. Red, purple, and tiny. So tiny she looked like a doll, a sketch, something half-finished.
Then they took her to the NICU, to machines that would breathe for her, warm her, and keep her alive.
Vesper lay on the table and cried. The cry was not from pain, but from the sound itself. That tiny, impossible, beautiful sound.
She woke in a room that smelled of antiseptic and flowers. Cillian sent the flowers. She knew because they were ugly. Cillian sent a dozen roses stuffed in a coffee mug. He likely arranged them himself.
Her body ached. The incision, low on her abdomen, was a C-section scar, matching her laparoscopic marks. A collection of scars, evidence of battles fought inside her body.
She pressed a hand against the bandage, feeling the sting and the emptiness. The baby was not gone but in the NICU, two floors up. Alive. Fighting.
Cillian slept in the chair beside her bed. Cillian's head was tilted back, his mouth open, and his clothes were wrinkled. He wore the same clothes for three days, maybe more. Dark circles shadowed his eyes, and stubble covered his jaw.
She watched him sleep. This man. This soldier. This father. He has sat in that chair for hours, days, since the surgery. Since they took the baby. Since they stitched Vesper closed and wheeled her to recovery.
He'd not gone to the NICU yet. Not until she woke. Not until she could go with him.
She reached for his hand. His fingers closed around hers. He woke, his eyes opening, red, tired, and fierce.
"Hey," she said.
"Hey."
"How long was I out?"
"Fourteen hours. They gave you something for the pain and for rest."
"Fourteen hours. You sat there for fourteen hours?"
"I sat here for three days. You were in recovery for fourteen hours."
"Three days."
"Three days. They let me stay because I own the building."
She almost laughed, but the incision stopped her. "The baby."
"She is alive. In the NICU. She weighs one pound, fourteen ounces. She is on a ventilator, in an incubator, with tubes, wires, and monitors. But she is alive. Her heart rate is stable, and her oxygen levels are satisfactory. Dr. Marsh says she is a fighter."
"One pound, fourteen ounces."
"She is small. She is early. But she is ours."
"Have you seen her?"
"Every day. Three times a day. I talk to her. I tell her about you. I tell her to wait. That her mother is coming."
Vesper's eyes burned. "Take me to her."
"You need to rest."
"I have rested for three days. Take me to my daughter."
He got the wheelchair and helped her into it. She winced as the incision pulled. He adjusted the blanket around her legs, then wheeled her to the elevator. Up two floors. Through double doors. Into the NICU.
The room was bright, warm, and full of machines and sound. Beeping. Humming. The low hiss of ventilators. The soft voices of nurses.
In the corner, an incubator with clear walls held a tangle of tubes and wires. Inside, so small, so impossibly small, lay their daughter.
Cillian wheeled her close. Vesper leaned forward, pressing her hand against the incubator wall. It felt warm. The baby was red and translucent. Her skin was so thin. Vesper could see the veins beneath. Her fingers were the size of rice grains. Her head was smaller than Vesper's fist.
She breathed, aided by the ventilator. Her chest rose and fell, tiny movements and giant efforts.
"She's beautiful," Vesper whispered.
"She's perfect," Cillian said.
"What's her name?"
He looked at Vesper. "I didn't name her. I waited for you."
Vesper looked at the baby, this tiny girl, a fighter. An impossible child. She survived a breeding contract, a kidnapping, a premature birth, and a dead woman's plan.
"Eleanor," Vesper said. "Elena. Ellie."
"Eleanor Elena."
"Ellie, for short. Ellie Thorne."
Cillian pressed his hand against the incubator. His fingers spread, covering as much of the dome as possible. His eyes were wet.
"Hello, Ellie," he said. "I'm your dad. I've talked to you for three days. Your mom is here now; she'll talk to you too. We're both here. We're not going anywhere."
Vesper reached through the access port. She touched the baby's hand, so small, so warm. The fingers curled, barely. A reflex, maybe. Or perhaps she knew.
"Hi, Ellie," Vesper said. "I'm your mom. I drew you before I met you. I've drawn you for months. You're even more beautiful than I imagined."
The monitor beeped steadily and strongly. Ellie's heartbeat, fought, and lived.
Elena arrived on the fifth day.
Vesper sat in the wheelchair again, beside the incubator. Her hand reached through the access port, touching Ellie's fingers, talking to her, and reading to her. The sketchbook lay open on her lap. She drew her daughter from life instead of imagination.
Cillian stood by the door. He saw Elena first. His body stiffened. He placed a protective hand on Vesper's shoulder.
"She's here," he said.
"I know."
"Do you want to see her?"
Vesper looked at the incubator, at Ellie, and at the tiny chest rising and falling. "Yes."
Elena entered the NICU. She looked out of place here. Too polished, too put together. Her silk blouse, her pressed pants, her perfect hair. She looked like a woman attending a board meeting, not a hospital.
She stopped at the door. Her eyes found the incubator, the tiny baby inside, the tubes, the wires, and the monitors.
Her face crumpled.
Not slowly, not gradually, but all at once. Like a wall collapsing. Like a mask shattering. Every piece of composure she held fell away, revealing something raw, broken, and human.
She pressed her hand against her mouth. Her eyes filled. Her shoulders shook. She made a choked, gasping, wrecked sound.
"Oh God," Elena said. "Oh my God. What did I do?"
She looked at Vesper, at the wheelchair, at the bandage visible above the blanket. She looked at the incubator, at the baby born early due to stress and trauma. A mother drugged her pregnant daughter, which caused the preterm labor.
"I did this to her," Elena said. "I did this to her," Elena said. To you. To my grandchild."
Vesper looked at her mother. This complicated, broken, loving, destructive woman. The woman who held her through grief and caused her greatest trauma. The woman who fought for her and against her.
"Yes," Vesper said. "You did."
Elena's legs buckled. She caught herself on a chair and sat, burying her face in her hands. Her body shook. An ugly, raw sound escaped her. It was the sound of a person confronting their worst mistake.
"I thought I was saving you," Elena said. "I thought he was using you. I thought the whole thing was a scheme. A plan. I thought if I could just get you away, get you clear, you'd see. You'd understand."
"I did see. I did understand. I understood that I loved him. That I wanted this baby. That I chose this child. And you couldn't accept that."
"I couldn't accept it because I know what it looks like. A man is isolating a woman; he was controlling her, tracking her body, and making decisions for her. I've seen it happen to friends. To clients. I couldn't watch it happen to my daughter."
"It wasn't happening to me. It was happening with me. There's a difference."
"Is there? Is there a difference when a man tracks your cycle, controls your food, won't let you drive, and moves into your house without asking?"
Vesper looked at Cillian. He stood by the door, his face hard. But she saw the guilt, the recognition. He knew Elena wasn't entirely wrong. He'd been controlling. He'd been possessive. He'd been overprotective to the point of suffocation.