Chapter 2 - The Call Luke Never Wanted Me to Make
The fluorescent hospital lights hurt my eyes.
Every breath burned.
For several seconds after waking, I couldn’t understand why the ceiling above me was white instead of cream, or why something beeped steadily near my right shoulder. My body felt strangely heavy, wrapped and restricted in ways I couldn’t immediately understand.
Then I tried to move.
Pain tore through me.
A small sound escaped my throat.
“Caroline?”
Luke’s voice.
My entire body went rigid before my eyes even found him.
He sat beside the hospital bed wearing the same white shirt he had worn at dinner. His sleeves were rolled to his elbows. His dark hair was still damp around the temples. To anyone walking into that room, he probably looked like an exhausted husband who had spent the night worrying about his injured wife.
I knew better.
I remembered the kitchen.
I remembered the metal pot.
I remembered his voice.
Maybe this will teach your body what it’s supposed to do.
My hand moved instinctively toward my stomach.
Luke immediately noticed.
“The baby’s okay,” he said.
I stared at him.
For a second, that was all I could hear.
“The baby?”
His mouth tightened.
“You don’t remember?”
I looked down.
My abdomen curved beneath the hospital blanket.
Relief hit me so hard that tears immediately filled my eyes.
I was still pregnant.
I closed my eyes.
Luke leaned closer.
“You scared everybody.”
Everybody.
That was one of his favorite words.
Everybody thinks you’re emotional.
Everybody knows you’re difficult.
Everybody understands why I get frustrated.
There was rarely an actual everybody.
There was only Luke.
The hospital room door opened.
A woman in navy scrubs entered, followed by a nurse.
She looked around forty-five, with dark hair tied back and the kind of calm expression that made me nervous because it didn’t miss anything.
“I’m Dr. Evelyn Hart,” she said. “Caroline, can you hear me?”
“Yes.”
Luke stood immediately.
“She’s still groggy.”
The doctor didn’t look at him.
“Caroline?”
“Yes,” I repeated.
“Do you know where you are?”
“Hospital.”
“Good. Do you know what happened?”
Luke answered.
“She knocked the pot over herself.”
My eyes moved toward him.
He continued before anyone asked.
“We were cooking. She got dizzy. She’s been clumsy lately because of the pregnancy. I tried to catch it, but—”
“Mr. Mercer.”
Dr. Hart’s voice was quiet.
Luke stopped.
“I’m asking Caroline.”
A muscle moved in his jaw.
Something cold passed through me.
Luke didn’t like being interrupted.
He especially didn’t like being corrected by women.
Dr. Hart pulled a stool closer.
“Caroline, was this an accident?”
Luke’s hand covered mine.
His fingers were warm.
His thumb pressed into my knuckles.
Hard.
A warning.
Nobody else would have noticed.
I did.
For seven years, I had learned to recognize warnings that didn’t leave obvious marks.
A hand around my wrist beneath a restaurant table.
A knee pressed against mine at a family dinner.
A smile that meant I had said too much.
A softly spoken we’ll discuss this at home that guaranteed I wouldn’t sleep that night.
His thumb pressed harder.
“Caroline,” he said gently. “Tell her what happened.”
He wanted me to repeat his version.
I had done it before.
When I fell down the stairs.
When I walked into a door.
When I slipped in the shower.
When I somehow bruised my shoulder carrying groceries.
When I miscarried our second pregnancy after Luke shoved me against the bedroom dresser during an argument and then spent three hours telling me I had caused everything by upsetting him.
I had lied for him.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Because he always apologized afterward.
Because he always cried.
Because he always said he loved me.
Because he always reminded me that I had nowhere else to go.
Most of all, because he convinced me that I deserved what happened.
My body was defective.
My pregnancies failed.
I couldn’t give him the son he wanted.
Therefore, every disappointment in our marriage somehow began inside me.
Dr. Hart waited.
Luke’s thumb dug into my hand.
Something changed.
Maybe it was exhaustion.
Maybe it was the baby moving faintly beneath the blanket.
Maybe it was finally understanding that if I protected Luke again, I might not survive long enough to protect my child.
I pulled my hand away.
“No.”
Luke blinked.
Dr. Hart leaned closer.
“No?”
“It wasn’t an accident.”
Silence filled the room.
Luke laughed.
Not loudly.
That almost made it worse.
“She’s being dramatic.”
The nurse stepped closer to my bed.
Dr. Hart didn’t move.
“What happened, Caroline?”
My throat tightened.
Luke stood.
“She slipped near the stove.”
I looked directly at him.
For seven years, I had avoided his eyes when he was angry.
Not this time.
“He poured it on me.”
Luke’s chair scraped violently backward.
“She’s lying!”
The nurse immediately moved between us.
“Sir, I need you to step back.”
“I brought her here!”
Dr. Hart stood.
“Step back.”
“You’re listening to a woman who has been hysterical all night!”
I flinched automatically.
Luke saw it.
So did the doctor.
His face changed.
He knew he had made a mistake.
He immediately softened his voice.
“Sweetheart, you were terrified. You don’t remember correctly.”
I remembered perfectly.
We had been standing in our kitchen.
Dinner was on the stove.
Luke had come home already angry because his father called asking whether we had learned the baby’s sex.
We hadn’t.
I wanted it to be a surprise.
Luke didn’t.
“What if it’s another girl?” he demanded.
“We don’t know that.”
“You know what happened before.”
My stomach tightened.
I had lost three pregnancies before this one.
Each loss had hollowed something out of me.
Luke made sure the emptiness never healed.
“You can’t even carry properly,” he would say.
Or worse:
“Maybe God knows you’re not ready to give me what I need.”
That night, I finally said something I had spent years swallowing.
“The baby’s sex isn’t my fault.”
Luke stared at me.
“What did you say?”
“I said it isn’t my fault.”
He stepped closer.
“You blame me?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You still blame me.”
“No.”
“After everything I’ve done for you?”
His voice rose.
I should have stopped.
Instead, I whispered, “I just don’t think I should be punished for something I can’t control.”
The expression on his face changed.
Then the pot was in his hand.
The rest returned in fragments.
Heat.
The floor.
My own scream.
Luke standing above me.
Then nothing.
Back in the hospital, Dr. Hart lifted a folder.
“The pattern of injuries doesn’t support your explanation, Mr. Mercer.”
Luke stared at her.
“What pattern?”
Dr. Hart didn’t answer him.
She looked at me.
“There’s something else we need to discuss.”
Fear entered me immediately.
“The baby?”
“The baby is stable.”
I exhaled.
“But we reviewed portions of your medical history because of your pregnancy complications and previous losses.”
Luke went very still.
Dr. Hart continued.
“You were repeatedly told you were infertile?”
“Yes.”
The answer came automatically.
“Who told you that?”
I hesitated.
Luke stared at me.
“Our previous doctor.”
“Which doctor?”
“Dr. Collins.”
Dr. Hart glanced at the file.
“And Luke?”
My mouth went dry.
Luke’s voice came sharply.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
Dr. Hart turned one page.
“Quite a lot.”
She looked at me again.
“Caroline, the records we obtained do not support an infertility diagnosis.”
For a second I thought I had misunderstood.
“What?”
“You conceived multiple times naturally.”
“I know, but—”
“That alone doesn’t support what you were told.”
I stared at her.
“But I lost them.”
Her expression softened.
“Yes.”
My hand went to my stomach again.
The room suddenly felt cold.
Dr. Hart continued carefully.
“The more concerning issue is what appears repeatedly around those losses.”
Luke stood.
“This conversation is over.”
“No,” I whispered.
He looked at me.
I looked at Dr. Hart.
“What appears?”
She hesitated just long enough that terror filled the silence.
“Documented injuries.”
I couldn’t breathe.
“Your first miscarriage was preceded by an emergency visit for abdominal pain and bruising.”
I remembered.
Luke had kicked the bathroom door open while I was behind it.
“The second followed treatment for a fall.”
He shoved me.
“The third came after another injury.”
My eyes filled.
Luke stepped forward.
“This proves nothing.”
Dr. Hart looked directly at him.
“I didn’t say it proved anything. I said it raises very serious concerns.”
Something inside me cracked open.
All those years.
All those nights crying alone.
All those mornings staring at pregnancy tests like they were accusations.
Every time Luke told me my body had betrayed us.
Every time I apologized to him for losing a child I had desperately wanted.
My body hadn’t betrayed me.
Luke had spent years making me believe it had.
He leaned toward me.
His face remained almost calm.
“You have nothing without me,” he hissed.
The nurse heard him.
So did Dr. Hart.
Luke didn’t seem to care anymore.
“No money. Nowhere to go. Who do you think is going to take care of you?”
That threat had controlled me longer than his fists ever had.
Dr. Hart asked quietly, “Is there anyone you trust?”
Luke answered instantly.
“No.”
I looked at him.
Then a phone number appeared in my memory.
Ten digits I had refused to forget even after Luke made me delete the contact.
“My sister.”
Luke froze.
His eyes changed.
“She doesn’t want you.”
“Yes, she does.”
“You haven’t spoken to her in four years.”
“Because you wouldn’t let me.”
“That’s not true.”
I gave the nurse the number.
Digit by digit.
Luke stepped toward her.
“Don’t call her.”
The nurse turned away.
“Luke.”
His eyes snapped back to mine.
For once, I wasn’t asking permission.
“Sit down.”
His face went pale with fury.
The nurse pressed the final digit.
The line rang.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Then a woman answered.
“Hello?”
The nurse looked at me.
I whispered, “Rachel?”
Silence.
Then my sister gasped.
“Caroline?”
My chest broke open at the sound of her voice.
Luke took one step backward.
Rachel’s voice became urgent.
“Caroline, listen to me.”
I clutched the hospital blanket.
“I’m here.”
Her next words made Luke’s face turn completely white.
“I’ve been waiting years for you to call. Tell me where you are, because this time, you are not going back to him.”
Luke stared at the phone.
And for the first time in our marriage, I saw something in his eyes I had never seen before.
May you like
Fear.
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