Later, when they returned me to my room, my mother arrived.
She did not knock so much as enter like a weather front.
Margaret Grant was a retired pediatric surgeon with silver hair, sharp cheekbones, and a talent for making residents reconsider their life choices with a single glance. She had raised me alone after my father died and had never approved of Cameron as much as she tolerated him.
The moment she saw me, her face changed.
For one second, she looked like every mother in every waiting room I had ever tried to comfort.
Then she straightened.
“Oh, my darling.”
She crossed the room and took my face in both hands, kissing my forehead with a tenderness that made me feel five years old.
“I’m here.”
I had not realized how badly I needed to hear that until she said it.
“I’m okay,” I whispered.
“No, you are alive. We will discuss okay later.”
Despite everything, I almost smiled.
She sat beside me and took my hand, her thumb brushing carefully around the bruises.
“I saw the baby.”
“Noah.”
Her eyes softened.
“Noah,” she repeated. “He is magnificent.”
For a while, we sat in silence.
Then my mother asked, “Where is Cameron?”
“Not allowed in.”
“Good.”
“Mom.”
“I am being generous.”
I turned my face toward the window. “It’s complicated.”
“Many terrible things are.”
“He thought I hurt Sophie.”
“And did you?”
“No.”
“Then it is less complicated.”
I wanted to argue, but the words dissolved.
My mother’s grip tightened.
“Amelia, love does not require you to pretend harm was confusion.”
The sentence landed quietly.
I looked at her.
Her face held no triumph, no I-told-you-so. Only the worn wisdom of someone who had spent a career seeing families at their most frightened and least honest.
“I don’t know what happens next,” I admitted.
“You don’t have to know today.”
That permission loosened something in my chest.
Outside my room, voices rose briefly. A man’s voice, urgent. A woman’s, strained. Then footsteps passed quickly down the hall.
My mother glanced toward the door.
“Hospital drama?”
“In this place? Never.”
She arched a brow.
A minute later, Elena entered without her tablet. That alone told me something had changed.
“Margaret,” she said.
“Elena.”
Their greeting carried years of professional respect and mutual suspicion.
Elena looked at me. “Are you up for hearing something difficult?”
My mother straightened.
I nodded.
Elena closed the door.
“Sophie is missing.”
The room went still.
“Missing?” I repeated.
“She left the hospital shortly after the delivery. She was scheduled to be questioned this morning by the program director and risk management. She did not appear. Her badge was used once at 4:12 a.m. to access the residents’ lounge, then again at 4:27 a.m. to exit through the east stairwell.”
My mind moved through the hospital map automatically.
East stairwell.
Close to the staff parking lot.
Close to the old records corridor.
“Did anyone call her?”
“Several times. Phone goes straight to voicemail.”
My mother’s expression hardened. “Convenient.”
“Very,” Elena said.
I swallowed.
“What about the medication tray?”
Elena’s eyes met mine.
“That is another problem.”
I waited.
“The tray was processed as contaminated waste before anyone secured it.”
“By whom?”
“A night orderly says Sophie told him Dr. Bennett wanted it cleared immediately because you had knocked it over during a sterile procedure.”
I closed my eyes.
Every thread seemed to lead back to her, but none of them explained why she had woven the net in the first place.
“What does she want?” I whispered.
Neither woman answered.
Because none of us knew.
That afternoon, sleep came in shallow, uneasy stretches.
Each time I drifted off, I heard the monitor again. Not the soft beep beside my bed, but the long, unbroken note from the delivery room.
Flatline.
A sound like a road ending.
When I woke near evening, the room was dim. My mother slept upright in the chair, arms crossed, her chin tucked to her chest. A vase of pale yellow roses stood on the windowsill. The card was unsigned.
For reasons I could not explain, the sight of them filled me with unease.
Cameron hated yellow roses. He said they looked apologetic.
I reached for the card with clumsy fingers.
The front was blank.
Inside, written in neat blue ink, were five words.
Congratulations. He looks just like him.
My skin went cold.
Not just like you.
Not just like Cameron.
Just like him.
I read it again.
And again.
My mother stirred. “What is it?”
I handed her the card.
She read it, and the last traces of sleep vanished from her face.
“Who brought these?”
“I don’t know.”
She was on her feet immediately, pressing the call button.
Maya arrived first, followed by a security officer.
The flowers were removed. The nurse checked the visitor log. No florist had signed in. No delivery had been recorded. No staff member remembered placing them there.
But someone had.
Someone had entered my room while I slept, left flowers beside my bed, and written a message that made no sense unless it was meant to make me afraid.
By nightfall, my room had been moved to a more private corridor.
My mother refused to leave. Elena arranged for a security presence without making it feel theatrical. Cameron was still not permitted inside, though I was told he had not gone home.
