He Chose Her Over Our Dead Child

"Mrs. Ortega?"

Deidre jumped. Her hands, which had been tightly woven together in her lap, jerked apart. She pressed her palms flat against the cool leather of the sofa, trying to stop the trembling.

Dr. Frye stood in the doorway of his Upper East Side clinic. He didn't meet her eyes. He walked over to his mahogany desk, the heavy door clicking shut behind him, and sat down. He placed two thick manila folders on the blotter and pushed them toward her.

"Your results are back," he said. His voice was flat. Dull to the point of being somewhat frightening.

Deidre reached for the first folder. Her fingers were numb. She opened it and stared at the grainy black-and-white image paper-clipped to the top. A tiny blob in a sea of static.

"You're six weeks pregnant," Dr. Frye said.

A rush of hot air filled Deidre's lungs. Six weeks. A baby. After all the negative tests, after all the months of disappointment, there was finally a heartbeat inside her. The corners of her mouth lifted. She looked up at the doctor, expecting to see a matching smile.

Dr. Frye was staring at the second folder. His jaw was tight.

"However," he said, flipping the second folder open, "your echocardiogram came back with severe abnormalities."

Deidre's smile froze. "Abnormalities?"

"You have severe dilated cardiomyopathy." Dr. Frye tapped a graph that looked like a jagged mountain range. "Your heart muscle is enlarged and severely weakened. Your ejection fraction is critically low. Your heart is failing, Deidre."

A high-pitched ringing started in Deidre's ears. She shook her head. "No. That's impossible. I just had a little shortness of breath. It's just the pregnancy-"

"It's not the pregnancy." Dr. Frye's voice was gentle but unyielding. He pointed to the numbers on the page. "Your BNP levels are through the roof. Your heart cannot pump efficiently. The physical stress of pregnancy increases blood volume by fifty percent. Your heart will not survive that load."

Deidre stared at the graph. The lines blurred. "What are you saying?"

"I am strongly advising you to terminate the pregnancy." Dr. Frye leaned forward, his eyes finally meeting hers, filled with pity. "If you carry this child to term, the strain will likely cause catastrophic heart failure. You will die."

Deidre's hands flew to her stomach. She covered the flat plane of her belly protectively, her fingernails digging into the fabric of her silk blouse. "No. There has to be another way. Medication? Surgery?"

"None that are safe during the first trimester." Dr. Frye sighed. "I know this is devastating. But you have to think about your own life."

The ringing in her ears grew louder. Her vision tunneled. She was going to be sick. She forced herself to breathe in through her nose, tasting the sterile clinic air. She would not cry. She would not fall apart here.

A violent vibration shattered the silence of the room. Deidre jumped again, her hand flying to her Hermes bag. She pulled out her phone, the screen glaringly bright in the dim office.

It was a multimedia message from an unknown number. No text. Just a loading image. The little spinning wheel seemed to take forever, stretching her nerves to the breaking point.

The image finally loaded.

Deidre's breath hitched. It was a photo taken from a distance, slightly grainy but unmistakably clear. A man in a dark cashmere coat was helping a woman out of a black SUV. The woman wore a fitted maternity dress, her belly round and prominent. The man's hand was resting on the small of her back, guiding her toward the entrance of a VIP maternity hospital.

Deidre's pupils shrank to pinpoints. She recognized that profile anywhere. The sharp jawline, the perfectly styled dark hair. It was her husband, Danial Ortega.

And the woman he was touching so intimately, the woman carrying that swollen belly, was Daria Guthrie. His cousin. His first love.

A second text popped up. Words only.

Looks like the sterile wife is the only one not having his kid. What a pathetic decoration.

Deidre's grip on the phone tightened until her knuckles turned bone-white. The plastic casing creaked under the pressure. Her stomach roiled, a wave of acid burning the back of her throat.

She stood up abruptly. The room tilted. Black spots danced in her vision, and she swayed on her feet, grabbing the edge of the desk to steady herself.

Dr. Frye shot out of his chair. "Deidre, sit down. Your blood pressure-"

"Don't touch me!" She slapped his hand away. Her voice was raw, stripped bare.

She snatched her bag off the floor, ignoring the concerned calls from the doctor. She stumbled toward the door, her heels catching on the thick rug. She yanked the door open and half-ran down the hallway, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.

The Fifth Avenue wind hit her like a slap when she burst out of the clinic. It was freezing, the kind of cold that bit into your skin and turned your lungs to ice. Deidre didn't care. She stepped off the curb, her arm raised, shouting over the traffic noise.

A yellow taxi screeched to a halt. Deidre yanked the back door open and dove inside.

"Where to?" the driver asked, looking at her pale face in the rearview mirror.

Deidre rattled off the address from the hospital sign in the photo. The driver hesitated, taking in her shaking hands and wild eyes, but he stepped on the gas.

The cab's heater was blasting, pumping out dry, stuffy air. But Deidre couldn't stop shivering. Her whole body vibrated with a cold that had nothing to do with the weather outside. She leaned her head against the cold glass, watching the city blur past.

She thought about that morning. Danial standing by the door, adjusting his cufflinks. He hadn't even looked at her when he said goodbye. Just a curt "I have meetings" before the door clicked shut. He was going to see her. He was going to the hospital with her.

The taxi lurched to a stop in front of a discreet, modern building in Greenwich Village. Deidre threw a wad of cash at the driver and scrambled out.

The revolving glass doors whooshed as she entered the quiet, luxurious lobby. It smelled like fresh lilies and money. A receptionist in a pristine white uniform looked up, her smile professional and guarded.

"Can I help you?"

"I'm here to see someone," Deidre said, her voice breathless. "A patient."

"Do you have an appointment?" The receptionist's eyes narrowed slightly. "This is a private facility. We don't allow walk-ins."

Deidre opened her mouth to argue, to scream Danial's name, but a sudden, sharp cramp in her chest stole her breath. She gasped, clutching the edge of the reception counter. She couldn't cause a scene. If Danial saw her like this, weak and desperate, he would just look at her with that cold, pitying expression.

"No," Deidre forced out. "I don't have an appointment."

She backed away, retreating to a corner of the lobby. She slipped behind a large potted fern, the broad green leaves hiding her from the main desk. She pressed her back against the wall, her eyes locked on the long corridor that led to the VIP consultation rooms.

Every second felt like an hour. The silence of the lobby pressed down on her, broken only by the soft ticking of a clock. A dull ache began to bloom in her chest, radiating down her left arm. Her heart was struggling, skipping beats, racing, then thudding too hard. The physical reality of her disease was creeping up on her, feeding on her panic.

A door clicked open at the end of the hall.

Deidre stopped breathing.

Danial stepped out. He looked immaculate, not a single dark hair out of place. In his hand, he held a soft, camel-colored cashmere coat. He turned slightly, holding the coat open.

Daria walked out, moving slowly, one hand resting on her large belly. She looked up at Danial through her eyelashes, a soft, vulnerable smile on her face.

Danial draped the coat over her shoulders with a tenderness that made Deidre's chest physically cave in. He pulled the lapels together, his fingers lingering on the fabric, adjusting it perfectly around her neck. It was a gesture of intimacy, of care. It was the kind of touch Deidre hadn't felt from him in years.

Daria leaned into his chest, tilting her head back to say something. Danial smiled. It was a real smile, warm and unguarded, his eyes crinkling at the corners. He looked at Daria with a depth of affection that Deidre had only ever dreamed of receiving.

Deidre's nails dug into her palms so hard she felt the skin break. The physical pain was nothing compared to the agonizing tear in her chest. It felt like a physical hand had reached inside her ribcage and ripped her heart to shreds.

Danial reached out, his large hand covering Daria's swollen belly. He rubbed it gently, then leaned down, pressing his ear to her stomach, listening. A soft, genuine laugh escaped him. He looked like a proud father.

A violent spasm clenched Deidre's stomach. The nausea hit her like a tidal wave. The morning sickness, combined with the sheer, visceral disgust of watching her husband fawn over another woman's child, was too much. She slapped a hand over her mouth, retching silently, and took a hasty step backward.

Her stiletto heel caught on the metal base of a trash can.

Clang.

The sound echoed through the silent lobby like a gunshot.

Danial's head snapped up. His smile vanished instantly. His eyes, sharp and predatory, locked onto the corner where the sound had come from. He straightened up, his body tensing, his gaze piercing through the leaves of the fern.

Deidre froze. She pressed her back flat against the wall, holding her breath until her lungs burned. Her heart was beating so fast and so hard she was sure he could hear it. She was trapped, a deer in the headlights, waiting for the executioner to pull the trigger.