Chapter 2 - THE PRIVATE CLINIC AND THE WOMAN IN THE SILK ROBE
The Silver Birch Women’s Center smelled faintly of bleached linen and expensive eucalyptus oil—the kind of smell designed to convince wealthy patients that they were checking into a boutique spa rather than a medical facility where things could go wrong with terrifying speed.
Dr. Celia Rusk did not look at Leah when she entered the examination room. She was fifty-five, with hair the color of polished steel and thin, elegant fingers that moved across a tablet screen with the speed of a court stenographer.
"Lie back, Mrs. Carver," Dr. Rusk said without looking up. "Doreen called my office twenty minutes ago to confirm you were on your way. She’s quite concerned about your recent lethargy."
"I slept four hours," Leah said as she climbed onto the high leather table, the paper beneath her crackling like dry parchment. "Anyone would be lethargic."
"Doreen mentioned you were rambling about dreams again," the doctor continued, sliding the cold metal wand of the ultrasound machine across Leah’s bare skin with a brisk, efficient stroke. "Stress during the final month can manifest as vivid auditory and visual disturbances. We see it often in women who aren't... well-suited to the transition into motherhood."
Leah stared up at the acoustic tiles of the ceiling, where a small water stain formed the rough shape of a continent without an ocean. "What does that mean—not well-suited?"
"It means some women experience an inability to process the reality of their situation," Dr. Rusk said, her eyes fixed on the grey-and-white monitor where the baby’s heart flickered like a distant star through a dirty window. "Look here. See that shadow near the lower uterine segment?"
"Is the baby alright?" Leah’s voice dropped an octave, the cold gel on her belly suddenly feeling like a layer of ice.
"The baby is large, active, and developing normally," Dr. Rusk said, her tone professional yet devoid of warmth. "However, you have a low-lying placenta—placenta previa, bordering on marginal. Combined with your recent history of emotional instability and insomnia, I am not comfortable sending you back to an unsupervised apartment."
Leah sat up, ignoring the paper tearing beneath her hips. "My apartment isn't unsupervised. My husband is there every evening."
"Nathan works long hours, and Doreen tells me he has been under immense strain trying to manage your episodes," Dr. Rusk said, typing a final note and clicking the screen off with a sharp clack. "I am admitting you to Briar Glen Maternity Pavilion immediately for observation. You’ll stay in the private wing until delivery. It’s safer for everyone involved."
"I want to go home," Leah said, her voice shaking with a sudden, sharp heat. "I want to pack my own things. I want to sleep in my own bed."
"Doreen has already sent your canvas bag from the house," the doctor replied, not unkindly, but with the flat finality of someone reading a sentence from a legal code. "A nurse is waiting downstairs with a wheelchair. Let’s not make a difficult morning more complicated than it needs to be, Leah. Your mother-in-law only wants what is best for the child's future."
By noon, Leah was sitting on the edge of a narrow institutional bed in Room 412 of Briar Glen Maternity Pavilion—a four-bed ward where only one other bed was currently occupied.
The woman by the window looked as though she had been dropped into the hospital by a helicopter from a different economic bracket. Her dark hair was wound into a glossy, effortless chignon, and she wore a heavy silk robe the color of bruised plums over a matching nightgown. Three distinct bottles of French skin-care oil stood in a precise row on her bedside table next to a leather-bound journal and a gold fountain pen.
She didn't look up from her phone as Leah was wheeled in by a bored-looking orderly named Todd, who dumped the canvas bag on the linoleum and left without a word.
"Take any bed except this one," the woman said, her voice low and musical, with the clipped accent of someone who had spent her formative years in Connecticut or London. "The plumbing in the corner is broken, and the radiator sounds like a dying steam engine every time the heat kicks on."
"I wasn't planning to climb into yours," Leah said, dropping onto the stiff mattress of the middle bed.
The woman’s mouth curved into a thin, ironic smile. She turned the phone face down on the coverlet. "Good. I’m Simone."
"Leah."
Simone studied Leah for three long seconds—not with the casual glance of a stranger, but with the cold, comprehensive appraisal of a buyer inspecting horseflesh at a county fair. "You look like you've been dragged through a hedge backward. Was it Doreen?"
Leah stiffened. "What did you say?"
"Doreen Carver," Simone repeated, her dark eyes glittering with a sharp, malicious amusement. "The formidable Doreen. Every woman in the tri-state area with a uterus and a modest inheritance has a story about her. She’s the woman who buys charities just so she can chair the committee that fires the directors."
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"You know her?"
"My husband’s family does business with her holding company," Simone said, leaning back against her pillows and crossing her arms over an eight-month stomach that looked as neat and compact as a football tucked under a sweater. "They’re old money that smells like new blood. If you’re in here under her name, darling, you aren't a patient. You’re a project."
