Chapter 1 — The Corridor I Wasn’t In

I have to tell the first part of this story secondhand, because I wasn’t conscious for it.

I have pieced it together since from the people who were there — a nurse, an exhausted physician, a lawyer who could not look me in the eye afterward — and every one of them told it the same way, which is how I know it’s true.

There was a corridor outside the intensive care unit, and it smelled of antiseptic, and behind its doors a team of doctors was fighting to bring me back.

Hours earlier I had delivered twins by emergency cesarean.

Two tiny babies had survived it.

I had nearly not.

My heart stopped on the table.

Machines were breathing for me.

No one in that building was willing to promise I would ever open my eyes again.

And while the doctors worked to save the mother of his children, my husband stood in the hallway thinking about something else entirely.

Flynn Locke wore a tailored suit that cost more than most families make in a month, and by every account he showed no tears, no panic, no fear — only impatience, the particular impatience of a man being kept from an appointment.

A lawyer stood beside him holding a thick sheaf of papers.

“Mr.

Locke,” the attorney said, with a careful glance toward the ICU doors, “your wife is in critical condition.

Are you certain you want to proceed with this right now?”

Flynn barely lifted his eyes.

He signed.