The coffee fell on my lap like hot acid and burned me while one baby cried on my chest and the other was weakly trying to search through my hospital gown for food, so white was the room for a moment. Then Vanessa smiled.
My adult stepdaughter was standing next to me at the hospital bed in a cream-coloured suit and with diamond earrings sparkling in the fluorescent lights and one perfectly manicured hand still clutching the empty paper coffee cup. She didn’t look like a grieving step-daughter. She didn’t look like a woman worried about her new twin brothers who were crying in my arms.
She looked victorious.
“You are nothing but a cheap breeder,” she said angrily. “Dad has already moved my real mother back into the master bedroom today.”
The pain in my stitches felt like they were on fire, as if my uterus was full of broken glass. The nurses had warned me not to move, to not strain myself, and to not let my stress raise my blood pressure.
Vanessa stepped even closer.
“You really thought you would save yourself by having twins?” she mocked. “Men like my father always go back to classy women.”
I looked down at the coffee soaking through the blanket, steam rising up against my skin, as my babies cried even louder.
“Get a nurse,” I said quietly.
Vanessa laughed. “Still trying to give orders?”
Then, she grabbed the front of my hospital gown and pulled it down hard.
Pain exploded through my body so violently I almost dropped my son as the blood began to pour out from beneath the bandages. And in that instant, as I felt that burning sensation of blood pouring out of me, my mind registered the quiet sound of ripping stitches tearing open below my skin.Richard was standing in the doorway when I saw him.