Chapter 2 - The Screams in the Hallway
The positive pregnancy test lay in Eleanor’s trembling hand, its white plastic casing cold against her damp palm. Two dark pink lines stared back at her like an accusation.
Beside it on the bedside table sat the small brown bottle, its cap lying loose on the polished wood. Three white pills, partially crushed into powder, clung to the glass rim.
Eleanor’s gaze snapped back to the bed. The crimson stain had spread across the white fitted sheet, soaking through the mattress, dripping in slow, silent drops onto the hardwood floor below. Lila’s lips were blue. Her skin had taken on the translucent, waxy sheen of candle wax left out in the cold.
"Adrian!"
Eleanor’s voice tore from her chest—a raw, ragged shriek that echoed off the high plaster ceilings of the old house. It wasn't the commanding bark she used when demanding chores or scolding late arrivals. It was the frantic, animal cry of a woman who had just stepped onto a precipice and felt the ground give way.
"Adrian! Get up here! Now!"
Downstairs, a chair scraped violently across the kitchen floor. Heavy footsteps thudded against the stairs, two at a time. Adrian burst through the doorway, his hair disheveled from sleep, his eyes red-rimmed from the previous night’s liquor. He was still wearing his silk wedding trousers and a rumpled undershirt.
"Mom, what the hell are you screaming about?" he snapped, rubbing his face. "It’s barely eleven o'clock, and my head is pounding—"
His voice died instantly.
The sight in the room hit him like a physical blow. He stumbled backward, his back slamming into the doorframe. His eyes bulged as he looked from the stick lying on the rug, to his mother kneeling beside the bed, and finally to his bride, lying still in a pool of her own blood.
"Lila?" Adrian choked out, his face draining of color until he looked as ghostly as his wife. "Lila! What... what did you do to her?!"
"I didn't do anything!" Eleanor cried, her voice cracking as she pressed a trembling hand against Lila’s freezing cheek. "I came up to wake her! I pulled the blanket—Adrian, call an ambulance! Call 911 right now!"
"Is she... is she dead?" Adrian stood frozen, his arms dangling uselessly at his sides, paralyzing fear locking his limbs in place.
"She’s breathing, but barely!" Eleanor roared, turning on her son with a fierce, terrified fury she had never felt toward him before. "Stop staring like an idiot and call for help! She’s bleeding to death!"
Adrian fumbled in his pocket, pulling out his phone with hands so slick with cold sweat that he nearly dropped it twice. His thumb smeared the glass as he dialed three numbers and pressed the phone to his ear.
"Help," he stammered into the line, his voice rising to a pathetic squeak. "I need an ambulance. My house... my wife... there’s blood everywhere. She won't wake up!"
While Adrian babbled the address into the phone, Eleanor leaned over Lila, her eyes darting across the bedside table. Her hand hovered over the brown bottle and the empty blister packs.
Eight weeks.
The test said eight weeks.
Eleanor and Adrian had only been planning this wedding for two months. Lila had been quiet, polite, almost timid throughout the preparations. She had never asked for expensive flowers. She had never demanded a lavish dress. Whenever Eleanor had criticized her cooking or called her soft, Lila had simply bowed her head and said, “I’m sorry, Mother. I’ll do better next time.”
Eleanor felt a sudden, sickening knot twist in her stomach. She had thought Lila was weak. She had thought the girl was spoiled, resting in bed while the family worked.
She wasn't sleeping, Eleanor realized with horrifying clarity. She was bleeding out in the dark while we were downstairs laughing.
"They're coming," Adrian whispered, dropping his phone onto the carpet. He took a hesitant step toward the bed, reaching out a hand, but stopped short of touching his wife. "Mom... what are those pills? What is that bottle?"
Eleanor picked up the small brown glass container. There was no pharmacy label, no doctor's name, only a handwritten piece of masking tape with faint blue ink faded beyond recognition.
"I don't know," Eleanor whispered, her throat dry. "But your wife was pregnant, Adrian."
Adrian’s jaw dropped. "Pregnant? She... she didn't tell me."
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Eleanor looked up, her sharp, dark eyes piercing right through her son. "She didn't tell you? Or you didn't listen?"
Before Adrian could answer, the distant, rising wail of sirens cut through the quiet morning air, rushing down the narrow lane toward the Whitcomb house.
