Chapter 3

My father slapped Joe across the face.

He yelled, “You jerk! You knew that Diane wouldn’t take the news of her baby’s death lightly! Why didn’t you keep an eye on her?

“Look at what you’ve put my daughter through!”

I quickly said, “Dad, I’m not sick! My baby isn’t dead!

“You were in charge of my prenatal check-up. You know very well that even if my baby was born three weeks early, she was still healthy!”

My father looked at me guiltily.

“Diane, the reports showed that the baby wasn’t really healthy. There were some issues with her, but I let my ego get in the way. I thought that I could cure her.

“That was why I didn’t tell you the truth.

“However, I couldn’t do it. The baby was indeed stillborn.”

I was stunned. My parents were gynecologists too. As their only daughter, they took excellent care of me when I was pregnant, even more so than Joe.

My father, who doted on me, would not lie to me. Did I really give birth to a stillborn baby?

I pressed my hands on my lower abdomen. I vividly remembered hearing my baby cry. Tears streamed down my face.

“Maybe it wasn’t meant to be… Dad, was my baby beautiful?”

My father nodded with tears in his eyes. “She was exactly like you when you were a baby. She was fair and tiny. Her fists looked so much like yours when you were small. She was clenching them so tightly!”

I immediately tensed up as my body went numb. I stared at my father in disbelief.

“Dad, you’re lying to me.

“Why’re you lying to me like Joe? What’re you hiding from me? Why did you take my baby away?!” I roared at my father.

He was dumbfounded. “Diane, you’re my only daughter! Why would I lie to you?”

I broke down just then. I laughed and cried maniacally.

“That’s right! You did all my prenatal check-ups for me.

“But I went on a trip once. My friend, who’s a gynecologist, did a check-up for me on my request.

“That friend found that my baby had six fingers on one hand.

“My friend said that my baby had been clenching her fists so tight in the previous check-ups that we didn’t notice it.”

My father immediately said, “Your friend might have been mistaken. How could you doubt me?”

“Am I wrong? You’re all lying to me!” I yelled and woke the newborn babies in the room.

They started crying.

The parents were worried. They begged and tried to placate me. They pressured my father to tell the truth.

However, my father insisted that my baby was stillborn.

I took a deep breath and looked up. Tears streamed down my cheeks. I looked at the time.

“You have twenty minutes more. It seems you’re all willing to risk the lives of thirty babies instead of giving me back my baby!

“Why? Why would you be willing to let me die along with these thirty babies rather than give me back my baby?!”

The others pressured my father and Joe. They kept saying that my baby was dead.

They had no choice but to call the police.

Just as one of the parents was about to call the police, my mother snatched their phone away.

My mother knelt on the floor and begged, “My daughter’s just agitated because of her sorrow. She’s a mother who just lost her baby!

“I’ll convince her! Please don’t call the police.”

After that, she turned to me in tears. “Diane, please don’t do this. Come to me!”

I asked her, “Mom, can I really trust you?”