Chapter 4
It was the softest, warmest place in my body.
The little palace where our baby was meant to grow.
Jonathan's forceps reached for it.
My soul stretched to its limit.
'No!' Emily screamed inside her head.
'Don't touch that!'
'Jonathan, please, just stop!'
'Our baby is there!'
'He's only three months old. He died with me. Please, let him rest!'
'Let him go in peace with me!'
Emily screamed and roared like a madwoman, trying to hurl her ghostly self at him, desperate to stop him.
But she just passed through him, not even a ripple in his world.
He couldn't hear her.
He couldn't feel anything.
His forceps gently grasped my womb.
"Womb, normal size and shape. No signs of fibroids or—"
His voice cut off abruptly.
His hands froze mid-motion.
Through the thin wall of my womb, he seemed to sense something unusual, something out of place.
Something that wasn't supposed to be there.
His brow furrowed, almost imperceptibly.
That tiny change in his expression made Frank Miller's heart skip a beat.
"What's wrong, Jonathan?" Frank asked.
Frank's voice was a little hoarse.
Jonathan didn't answer.
He set down the forceps and picked up a smaller pair of tissue scissors.
His breathing grew heavier, just a bit.
Everyone was watching his hands, barely daring to blink.
Silence hung in the autopsy room, so thick you could hear a pin drop.
He carefully snipped open the wall of my womb.
His hands moved slowly, almost tenderly.
Like he was scared to wake something sleeping inside.
As the cut widened, a tiny, curled-up life—a fully formed baby—was revealed to everyone, lying there in silence.
He was so small, with his eyes closed, like a sleeping angel.
All his limbs were there, even his tiny fingers and toes faintly outlined.
He lay there peacefully, in what was once the warmest haven in the world, blissfully unaware of the cruelty outside.
Time seemed to freeze.
The air felt frozen.
Jonathan was frozen in place.
He held the scissors, motionless, like a statue, petrified in an instant.
Above his mask, those eyes that had always been as calm as a still well suddenly flickered with bewilderment and confusion.
He seemed utterly baffled by the presence of this tiny life.
But in the next instant, that confusion was swept away by a tidal wave of shock so intense it defied words.