Chapter 2 - The Passenger
I woke in another bay with a fetal monitor strapped around my stomach.
The baby’s heartbeat filled the room in quick, steady pulses.
Dr. Forsythe stood beside me.
“Your daughter is doing well,” she said. “You fainted from stress and dehydration.”
My daughter.
For four years, Garrett and I had tried to hear those words.
We survived two miscarriages, hormone treatments, and the kind of grief people tried to comfort with phrases like everything happens for a reason.
This pregnancy had felt like mercy.
Now even the sound of our baby’s heartbeat belonged to a life I no longer understood.
“Who is she?”
The doctor hesitated.
“I can’t discuss another patient’s private information.”
“Was she in Garrett’s truck?”
Officer Crane answered from near the doorway.
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Passenger seat.”
“Why?”
“That is something your husband will have to explain.”
Garrett had told me he was driving to Wilmington for a supplier meeting.
The accident occurred near the marina, twenty miles in the opposite direction.
His truck left the wet road and struck a barrier after another vehicle crossed the center line.
The other woman had called emergency services.
When paramedics arrived, she identified Garrett as her partner.
Not employer.
Not friend.
Partner.
Officer Crane spoke carefully.
“She also gave the hospital his medical history.”
I closed my eyes.
She knew his medication.
His allergies.
The name of his physician.
Things people learn through ordinary mornings, bedside drawers, and nights spent beside someone.
Not through one reckless affair.
May you like
This was not new.
Only my discovery was.
