Chapter 3

I stumbled out of the hospital clutching the test results. Scott called almost immediately.

"Where are you?

"Elena wants to swim. Go and clean the pool."

I gripped the phone until my fingers went white. "I'll go..."

Silence held for two seconds before he asked, "What's wrong with your voice?"

Only then did I realize I was so hoarse I could barely be heard.

"Nothing." I hung up, forced myself upright despite the bleeding, picked up a bucket, and went to scrub the pool tiles.

After five solid hours of scrubbing, I finally stood, and my vision suddenly went black.

I crumpled onto the tiles and lost consciousness.

When I came to, I thought I'd been thrown into a deep freeze.

The suffocation jolted me awake. Someone had already seized my hair and hauled my head above the water.

"Cough... cough... cough!"

I coughed violently, and the water I brought up was streaked with blood.

"You bitch! How dare you put broken glass in the pool and cut me!" Elena gripped my chin and thrust her face inches from mine.

Only then did I notice the shallow cut on her pinky.

She held up her hand and whined to Scott, "Darling, what if you had gotten into the pool too...?"

Her pathetic performance made me sneer. "You'd better hurry to the ER. Wait any longer, and the cut will heal before you get there."

Elena flushed crimson and immediately ordered the guards, "Madam enjoys ice water. Give her all she wants!"

I had always been terrified of the cold.

During our first year of marriage, my hands and feet always turned icy in bed.

Scott would rub his palms together until they were warm, then wrap them around my feet. All the while, he grumbled about how cold New York was that year and said he wanted to take me to Australia for the winter.

"Your hands are freezing. What will you do without me to warm them?" he muttered with a frown. "Maybe we should move to Australia and soak up the sun every day until you're a warm, cozy little kitten."

"And your organization?"

"Forget it. You matter more." He reached over and smoothed the deep crease between my brows.

But now, on the very night after my D&C, cold stabbed through me like hundreds of needles. Pain gave way to numbness until only silent tears remained. And Scott was nowhere.

I no longer had the will to struggle.

I could never be a mother again. It no longer mattered what anyone did to my body.

"Enough!" Scott burst in. He shoved the guards aside and wrapped me tightly in his coat.

"Who told you to do this?!" he roared at the guards, his voice hoarse. "Get out! All of you, get out!"

Elena froze.

She lunged for Scott's arm. "Darling, what are you doing? She..."

Scott flung her off.

Elena staggered back two steps, slipped, and plunged screaming into the pool.

She thrashed and screamed, "Scott! Help me! My leg is cramping..."

Scott looked down at me.

I was soaked through and could no longer speak.

He kissed my forehead and gently lowered me onto a lounge chair beside the pool. "Wait for me..."

He dove in and hauled Elena out.

Elena clung to his neck, sobbing so hard she could barely breathe, and insisted on returning to the bedroom to change.

I watched them disappear down the corridor.

And I understood that the hands that had warmed me through countless nights were never going to be mine again.

I opened my email, stared at the draft message to my attorney with the divorce papers attached, and tapped Send.