Chapter 2 - The Staged Accident
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"Call an ambulance!" I choked out, my tongue heavy and dry. "Julian, please... she's not moving... I can't feel the baby moving!"
I lay in a puddle of scalding broth and grease, every breath feeling like shattered glass inside my lungs.
Instead of dialing for help, Evelyn stood up, picked up my personal cell phone off the counter, and dropped it into a drawer. She walked calmly to the sink, pulled a clean microfiber cloth from the rack, and began wiping down the splatter marks on the wooden cabinets.
Julian scrambled across the kitchen. He grabbed a stepladder, climbed up, and violently ripped down the black dome camera mounted above the pantry door. He smashed the plastic housing against his knee, pulled out the memory card, and jammed it into his pocket.
Only after he was satisfied that the room was clear of evidence did he pick up the landline phone.
He took a deep, shuddering breath, forcing his voice to break into a panicked, frantic sob worthy of an Oscar-winning actor.
“911? Please, hurry!” Julian wailed into the receiver. “It’s my wife! My pregnant wife slipped in the kitchen! She knocked over a pot of soup... it was a terrible accident! Please, she’s burning!”
The paramedics arrived twelve minutes later. By then, the skin on my neck and arm had already raised into massive, fluid-filled blisters. They cut my clothes away right there on the floor, injecting heavy narcotics directly into my vein, but the fire inside me refused to go out.
When they loaded my stretcher into the back of the ambulance, St. Matthew’s Hospital felt a million miles away.
Inside the trauma bay, a team of six doctors and nurses swarmed around my gurney. The air smelled of burnt tissue and antiseptic. Monitors beeped frantically as a high-risk obstetrician placed an ultrasound probe onto my lower abdomen.
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The room suddenly fell into a tense, terrifying silence.
“The fetal heart rate is dropping,” the doctor announced sharply, looking at the monitor. “She’s in severe distress. We can't wait for the burns to stabilize. We have to deliver this baby tonight.”
