“Mr.
Vance,” he said softly, his voice barely audible over the rhythmic, mechanical whistling of the ventilator.
“I am so sorry.”
“Tell me everything,” I said.
My voice didn’t sound like my own.
It was devoid of inflection, flat and cold as slate.
“Three broken ribs on the left side, two on the right,” Thorne said, reading off a metal clipboard with hands that subtly trembled.
“A fractured clavicle.
Severe internal bleeding in the peritoneal cavity.
We had to perform an emergency laparotomy to stop the hemorrhaging from a ruptured spleen.”
He paused.
He didn’t look at me.
His eyes lowered to the linoleum floor.
“And?”
I pressed.
“The blunt force trauma to her torso was catastrophic,” Thorne whispered.
“The placenta detached.
We… we couldn’t save the baby, Mr.
Vance.
The cardiac activity ceased before she reached the operating table.
It was a girl.”
A girl.
A cold, liquid silence spread outward from my chest, freezing my blood, numbing my fingers, turning my heart into a block of black ice.
The world around me stripped away its color, leaving only stark, ruthless clarity.
