Chapter 3 - The Echo of the Heart
The trauma bay at St. Jude’s Memorial Hospital was a blur of harsh fluorescent lights, silver trays, and the smell of antiseptic overriding the scent of scorched flesh.
Doctors and nurses moved around my gurney like a orchestrated pit crew. Scissors snip-snipped through my broth-soaked clothes, peeling the cotton carefully away from my right arm and torso. Every touch brought a fresh, blinding electric shock of agony, but I didn't cry out for my skin.
“Fetal monitor! Get the doppler on her now!” a sharp female voice ordered.
It was Dr. Vance, the chief OB-GYN on call. She was a tall, sharp-eyed woman with silver-streaked hair and a demeanor that brooked no chaos. She shoved a cool, gel-covered probe against the bottom of my belly.
The room fell completely silent. The only sound was the harsh hum of the overhead lights and the heavy, ragged breathing coming from my lungs.
Five seconds passed. Ten seconds.
Nothing. Just static.
“Come on, baby,” I whispered, tears rolling down my temples into my hair. “Come on, Clara. Please.”
Then, through the speaker of the monitor, a sound emerged from the static.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
It was fast, rhythmic, and fiercely strong. One hundred and forty-eight beats per minute.
“Heartbeat is stable,” Dr. Vance breathed out, her severe face softening for a brief fraction of a second. “Placenta looks intact on the quick scan. No sign of immediate abruption, but we have high risk for stress-induced early labor. We need to stabilize these burns immediately.”
For the next four hours, I was subjected to the agonizing process of burn debridement. The second-degree burns covered nearly eighteen percent of my body—stretching from my right wrist, up my forearm, across my shoulder, and down the right side of my ribcage. The doctors explained that my quick turn and the heavy fabric of my shirt had saved my abdomen from direct contact with the boiling broth, but the physical trauma had sent my body into early, weak Braxton-Hicks contractions.
By eight o’clock that evening, I was moved to a private room in the high-risk maternity ward. My right arm was bound tightly in white silver-sulfadiazine bandages, suspended slightly on a foam pillow. Heavy IV fluids dripped steadily into my left arm.
The door opened quietly.
Luca walked in. He had changed his clothes into a fresh shirt, but his hair was disheveled, and his eyes were bloodshot. He carried a large vase of yellow roses—my least favorite flowers, though he had never bothered to remember that.
He set the vase on the bedside table and stepped close to the rail. He looked down at me, his eyes searching my face, trying to gauge how much I remembered, how much I was willing to say.
“The police took a statement downstairs,” Luca said, his voice a low, soothing purr. He leaned in close, bringing his face inches from mine so that his breath brushed against my ear. “I told them everything, Jessi. I told them how you insisted on cooking that massive pot. How you got dizzy because of the pregnancy. How you tripped over your own feet and knocked the pot off the burner.”
I kept my head turned toward the window, watching the city lights twinkling in the rain outside.
“They said it was a tragic home accident,” Luca continued, his fingers gently skimming the edge of my white bedsheet. “Wendy is at home cleaning up the mess right now. She’s throwing away the broken camera... and the ruined tiles.”
He paused. He reached down and took my left hand—the uninjured one—and squeezed it. His grip was tight. A warning disguised as affection.
“We can still be a family, Jessi,” he whispered, his voice dropping into a razor-thin thread. “Tell the officers tomorrow that it was an accident. Agree to sign the paperwork once you’re released, so we can pay off our debts and give this little girl a proper home. We can put all of this behind us. Just say it was an accident.”
I slowly turned my head. I looked past his neat collar, past his well-rehearsed grief, and looked directly into his dark pupils.
My father, Thomas, had taught me how to lay brick, but he had also taught me how to read structural integrity. He used to say: “When a wall is built on a rotten foundation, Jessi, don't try to patch the cracks. Step back and let it fall.”
I pulled my hand out from under his grip.
“I remember everything, Luca,” I said. My voice was quiet, but it did not tremble. “I remember the push. I remember Wendy’s voice. And I remember every single word.”
Luca’s smile vanished instantly. The warmth fled his face, replaced by a cold, calculating emptiness.
He stood up straight, smoothing the front of his shirt. He didn't offer another word of comfort. He didn't ask about his daughter’s heartbeat. He simply turned on his heel and walked out of the hospital room, locking the door firmly behind him in his mind.
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He thought he had won. He thought a smashed camera on a kitchen floor meant the end of the evidence.
He didn't know about the red brick house.
