The coffee hit my lap like burning acid while one twin screamed against my chest and the other searched weakly at my hospital gown. For one split second, the entire room faded white.Then Vanessa smiled.My adult stepdaughter stood beside my hospital bed wearing a cream blazer, diamond earrings glinting beneath fluorescent lights, one manicured hand still wrapped around the empty paper coffee cup. She didn\u2019t look like a grieving daughter. She didn\u2019t look like a woman concerned about her newborn brothers crying in my arms.She looked triumphant.\u201cYou\u2019re just a cheap breeder,\u201d she hissed. \u201cDad is already moving my real mother back into the master bedroom today.\u201dMy stitches pulsed with pain. My torn uterus felt packed with broken glass. The nurses warned me not to move, not to strain, not to let stress raise my blood pressure.anessa stepped even closer.\u201cYou honestly thought twins would save you?\u201d she sneered. \u201cPlease. Men like my father always go back to women with class.\u201dI looked down at the coffee soaking through the blanket, steam rising against my skin. My babies cried harder.\u201cCall a nurse,\u201d I said quietly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She laughed. \u201cStill trying to give orders?\u201dThen she grabbed the front of my hospital gown and yanked hard.Pain exploded through my body so violently I nearly dropped my son. A sharp, burning wetness spread beneath the bandages. Somewhere underneath the agony, I heard the soft ripping sound of stitches tearing open.That was when my husband Richard appeared in the doorway.For half a second, hope betrayed me.He would notice the bloodThe coffee.The babies screaming.He would stop her.Instead, his eyes slid across me like I was an inconvenience on paperwork.\u201cVanessa,\u201d he said sharply, \u201cdon\u2019t leave marks where staff can see them.\u201dI stopped trembling.Something inside me turned colder than the hospital floor beneath the bed.Behind Richard stood Celeste, his ex-wife, wrapped elegantly in a camel-colored coat, red lipstick curved into a pitying smile. \u201cOh, Maya,\u201d she sighed dramatically. \u201cYou really do turn everything into a performance.\u201dRichard stepped fully into the room and quietly shut the door.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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