A tear slipped down Emma’s cheek, a mixture of profound relief and lingering terror. “Ryan left me. I told him I couldn’t breathe, and he left.”
Clara’s expression hardened, a flash of pure anger crossing her face before she softened it for her sister’s sake. “The hospital found my emergency contact information in your old medical records because Ryan wouldn’t answer his phone. The police tried calling him dozens of times. His phone was off.”
“He was in Aspen,” Emma said, the memory of the social media video cutting through her like a knife. “He blocked notifications so he could enjoy his birthday.”
The primary care physician, Dr. Reynolds, entered the room carrying a medical chart. His face was grave as he looked at Emma. “Mrs. Parker, it’s good to see you awake. You suffered a massive postpartum hemorrhage coupled with a severe uterine infection. If the emergency services hadn’t arrived when they did, the internal bleeding would have been fatal within the hour. You are very lucky someone found you.”
As the doctor explained the recovery protocol, the door to the ICU room burst open. Ryan stood in the doorway, disheveled, panting, and holding his shattered watch in his hand. He had finally checked his voicemail after returning to an empty house and seeing the missed calls from the Denver Police Department.
“Emma!” Ryan cried, rushing toward the bed with an expression of theatrical distress. “Oh my god, I came home and the house was empty! Why didn’t you call me? Why didn’t you tell me it was this bad?”
Emma looked at the man she had loved, the man she had built a life with, and felt absolutely nothing but a cold, clear emptiness. The charm he usually used to wriggle out of trouble seemed entirely transparent now.
Clara stood up, placing herself directly between Ryan and the hospital bed. “Get out, Ryan.”
“This is my wife!” Ryan snapped, his panic quickly turning into his signature irritation. “You don’t belong here, Clara. We don’t even talk to you. Emma, tell her to leave. I was just on a business-related trip, I didn’t know—”
“It wasn’t a business trip,” Emma said, her voice remarkably steady despite her physical weakness. She reached for her phone on the bedside table, unlocked it, and pulled up the saved video of him laughing on the Aspen balcony, holding the whiskey glass. She turned the screen toward him. “You posted this while I was dying on the floor. You told the world to choose themselves.”
Ryan stared at the screen, his mouth opening and closing as his arrogance failed him entirely. The doctor quietly stepped out of the room to call hospital security, recognizing the escalating tension.
“Emma, I was drinking, I wasn’t thinking straight,” Ryan stammered, stepping back as Clara refused to budge. “We can fix this. Think about Ethan. He needs a father.”
“Ethan needs a protector,” Emma said, looking away from him toward the window, where the Colorado sun was rising over the mountains. “And the first thing I am going to protect him from is you.”
