“If you’re bleeding that badly, then put down a towel and stop ruining my birthday,” were the final words Tyler said to me before he zipped his suitcase closed.I was sitting on the nursery floor, one hand clutching the white bars of the crib while the other rested against my stomach, still swollen and aching from childbirth.Our son, Parker, had arrived only eight days earlier, and those eight days had disappeared into a haze of sleepless exhaustion, relentless pain, and the overwhelming fear that comes with becoming a mother for the first time.But that afternoon, the exhaustion felt different because it came with a horrifying amount of blood I could not stop.The expensive cream-colored rug my mother-in-law had picked out to make the nursery look sophisticated was already drenched beneath me with a dark crimson stain spreading wider by the second.
I stared at it in disbelief, unable to understand how something so dangerous could happen inside such a quiet, beautiful home.“Tyler, please listen to me because I need to go to the emergency room right now,” I whispered weakly, barely able to raise my voice.
He stepped out of the walk-in closet wearing brand-new designer sunglasses and a freshly pressed white shirt like he was heading to a magazine photo shoot.“Here we go again with the constant craving for attention,” he muttered while fixing his hair in the mirror.“My mother said every woman bleeds after giving birth, so you’re obviously not the first person in human history to have a baby,” he added with a mocking smile.“This is not normal because I can feel myself getting dizzy and faint,” I insisted, reaching toward him desperately.
Tyler did not even come closer. He stayed leaning against the doorway, scrolling through his phone with visible irritation.“Look, Olivia, I spent a ridiculous amount of money on this birthday weekend at those luxury cabins in the Blue Ridge Mountains,” he said without lifting his eyes from the screen.“The private dinner reservation is already booked, and my friends are halfway there. I’m not canceling everything just because you suddenly want to be the center of attention,” he continued.The word “attention” struck my chest harder than the cramps tearing through my back.Parker started crying in his bassinet, a tiny desperate sound that somehow made it feel like he sensed the danger around us.I tried turning toward him, but my arms felt impossibly heavy, and the entire room tilted violently around me.
“Please just call your mother or an ambulance or anybody who can help me,” I begged as tears blurred my vision.Tyler laughed coldly, the sound echoing through the hallway of our Franklin home.“So you want me to call an ambulance and let the whole neighborhood think I abandoned my wife on my birthday?” he asked bitterly.“Go make yourself some herbal tea and calm down. My mother will come check on you tomorrow morning,” he dismissed.“I don’t think I’ll still be alive tomorrow morning,” I whispered into the quiet room.
