(Elise's POV)
The ultrasound probe moved across my abdomen in slow, deliberate circles.
The screen showed a small white dot. Still. Completely still.
The doctor checked once. Then again. Then a third time. He set the probe down carefully and turned to me,"Mrs. Holloway, I'm very sorry. There's no fetal heartbeat. We need to schedule a D&C procedure immediately."
I didn't cry. My body went numb, like it had stopped belonging to me. I stared at that motionless white point on the screen, and something inside my chest simply froze over.
I had tried again. Another new life, offered up to save a dying marriage. And again, I had failed.
Three hours earlier, I had been driving to this hospital in the rain.
The storm had started at six in the morning. In Los Angeles, a downpour like this doesn't just slow traffic - it kills it entirely. I sat on the 405 for forty minutes while my prenatal appointment window came and went. The wipers were on their fastest setting and I still couldn't see three feet ahead of me.
Then the dashboard lit up. Warning light after warning light. The engine temperature spiked into the red, and the car shuddered and died on the shoulder.
I put on the hazard lights. Sat there with both hands on the wheel while the rain hammered the windshield like it had a grudge.
I called Damien.
Three rings. Then silence - the deliberate silence of a call being manually declined.
I called again. This time, a busy signal.
I tried once more. It connected.
"Elise." His voice was impatient before I could say a single word. "I'm busy. Stop calling."
He hung up.
There was no background noise on his end. No crowd, no wind, no ambient sound at all. He was somewhere that had been deliberately quieted.
I rolled the window down an inch. Rain spattered against my face. I sat there for a moment, then dialed Rosalind's number - she had a children's smartwatch with a phone function.
She picked up.
"Rosie," I said, "is Daddy near you?"
"Mommy, I'm at school. Daddy's not here. I can't talk now - bye-bye!" She hung up immediately.
I looked at the time. Saturday morning. Ten o'clock.
I sat in the driver's seat without moving for about a minute.
I found the insurance company's roadside assistance number and called. The operator told me that in severe weather, tow truck wait times were running at least two hours.
I looked at the prenatal appointment card stuck to the center console. I was already forty minutes late.
I checked the passenger seat. Tucked beside the door was a collapsible umbrella - a corporate giveaway from last year's Aether Life Sciences Christmas party. The only thing Damien had ever technically given me.
I opened it and got out of the car.