Chapter 1

It was late in my pregnancy, and my husband, David Carter, got dragged out by his friends for drinks.

At one in the morning, labor started all of a sudden.

I called David, gritting my teeth through the pain. "Come home. I'm in so much pain. I think I'm going into labor."

There was a brief silence, then everyone burst out laughing.

"David, you lost. Drink up! I told you your wife would use this as an excuse to call you home."

"Yeah, right, just hit full term and suddenly going into labor? What are the odds?"

Jessica Lane, one of David's girl buddies, laughed out loud. "Mona, we're both women. You can't fool me with that little trick.

"If you're really about to give birth, call 911. Come on, it's the 21st century; we can handle things without a man."

The call ended with a beep, and all I got was the busy tone.

Amniotic fluid was streaming down my legs, and the pain was so sharp that I could barely see straight.

Gritting my teeth, I dialed a number that had been buried for eight years.

*****

When I came to, I was in a hospital bed.

The door burst open, and David stormed over to my bedside. "Mona, are you okay? Where's the baby? Why isn't the baby here?"

He had dark circles under his eyes, his hair was a mess, and the strong smell of alcohol on him made me want to throw up. He had clearly come from a night of drinking.

"The baby's in the NICU," I said, my lips dry and my voice hoarse.

"What did you say?" he froze. "I... It's all my fault. I shouldn't have turned off my phone. I shouldn't have listened to Jessica."

I looked at the man I had been with for five years and married to for three, and for the first time, he felt like a stranger.

The concern in his eyes was real, the guilt and pain were real, but none of that could erase the laughter from last night's call, or the fact that when I needed him most, he chose to believe the mockery of others over me.

I remembered the terror in the delivery room yesterday, when the doctor had to cut me open in a rush, saying that if I had waited a minute longer, my baby would've died from lack of oxygen.

I remembered the chilling weakness after I hemorrhaged nearly 2000cc of blood, as if all the blood in my body had been replaced, leaving me cold and empty.

While my baby and I were fighting for our lives, he was out living it up with his girl buddies at the bar.

This thorn was stuck in my throat. I couldn't get over it.

"It wasn't about turning off your phone," I corrected him. "You treated my safety and our baby's like some kind of joke, hung up on me when I was begging for help, and laughed along with them."

David's face shifted from worry and guilt to defensiveness. "She was being mouthy, trying to mess with you. None of us thought you were actually in labor.

"We figured it was some new way to keep tabs on me. It was all a misunderstanding, so don't be mad."

His knee-jerk defense cut right through me.

I added, "At one in the morning, my water broke. I was lying helplessly on the floor, desperately calling you for help, while you were out there joking around and drinking with them.

"This is no misunderstanding, David."

David's face turned bright red as he paced the room like a cornered beast.

He opened his mouth, about to say something, but the door was suddenly thrown open again.

Jessica stormed in, pulling David behind her, shooting daggers at me. "Come on, so David wasn't waiting outside the delivery room for you when you gave birth; do you really have to get this worked up?

"Fine, I was out of line last night. I shouldn't have run my mouth and laughed at you. I'm saying sorry, alright? Is that good enough for you?

"Seriously, your water breaks, and instead of calling 911, you call your husband? What's he supposed to do, pop the baby out for you?

"Plenty of women give birth without their husbands around; why are you so needy, insisting he had to be there? Thanks to you, my birthday was totally ruined."

I laughed, but tears rolled down my cheeks anyway.

Jessica, David's girl buddy, apologized, not for my sake, but because she felt sorry for David. Then she turned around and called me needy.

I stared up at the ceiling, listening to the chaos in the room, and suddenly a wave of emptiness washed over me.

It wasn't sadness, and it wasn't relief, just a numbness, like I was completely drained inside.

"Go. I can't stand to look at you right now," I said.

"You're kicking me out?" David's voice shot up. "Mona, what the fuck is your problem?

"All this over what happened last night? Jessica already apologized; are you seriously still freaking out about it?

"Jessica and I have been friends for over twenty years. If there was anything between us, you wouldn't even be here. Can you stop acting so crazy?"

"I don't care if there's anything between you two," I cut him off. "What matters to me is that when I needed you the most, you trusted her instead of me, and ended my call for help."

"You didn't die, did you?" The moment David blurted it out, regret flashed across his face.

He saw my face drain of color and scrambled to explain himself. "That's not what I meant, I..."

"David," I said, staring at the ceiling, my voice barely more than a sigh. "Let's get a divorce."

This thorn was buried too deep. If I left it there, it would fester and make everything inside me rot.

I wanted to pull it out.