Chapter 2 - THE MIDNIGHT DIAGNOSIS AND THE BLEEDING TRUTHThe waiting room clock ticked with maddening slowness. Three hours had crawled by like three decades. Andrés sat in a hard plastic chair, his face buried in his hands, replaying every single warning sign he had stubbornly chosen to ignore over the past three years of marriage.
He remembered when Jimena first moved into the house in Naucalpan. She had been vibrant, laughing, a graphic designer who loved bright colors and sketching architecture. Slowly, systematically, Ofelia had chipped away at her spirit. “Why are you wearing makeup to the grocery store? Who are you trying to impress?” “Why are you wasting money on avocados when we have beans?” “If you loved Andrés, you’d learn how to cook real Mexican food the way I taught him.”
And Andrés, desperate for peace between the two women he loved, had always given the same cowardly answer: “Just be patient, amor. Mom is old school. She’ll warm up to you.”
She never warmed up. She froze her out instead.
"Family of Jimena Morales?"
Andrés bolted upright, nearly tripping over his own feet as a tall, tired-looking doctor in blue scrubs stepped out of the double doors holding a manila folder.
"I'm her husband! I'm Andrés! How is she? How is my baby?"
Dr. Armenta adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses, his expression grave and unreadable. He motioned for Andrés to follow him into a small, sterile consultation room lined with anatomy charts.
"Please, sit down, Mr. Salgado."
"Doctor, just tell me. Did we lose the baby?" Andrés whispered, his voice trembling on the edge of a precipice.
"Your wife suffered a severe blunt-force trauma to her lower abdomen, consistent with being forcefully shoved against a hard surface," Dr. Armenta stated evenly. "She also experienced prolonged psychological stress, dehydration, and panic. When she arrived, she was bleeding heavily from a partial placental abruption."
Andrés felt the oxygen vanish from the room. "Partial... does that mean—?"
"Your child is alive," Dr. Armenta interrupted, holding up a hand. "Miraculously, the fetal heartbeat is stable, though weak. However, Jimena is in critical condition. The shock and trauma triggered early uterine contractions. We've managed to stall the labor with medication, but she is on strict, immobile bed rest for the remainder of this pregnancy. If she undergoes one more episode of severe stress, physical trauma, or anxiety, she will go into active labor at five months. And at twenty-two weeks, the survival rate outside the womb is critically low."
A cold sweat broke across Andrés's forehead. The gravity of what his family—his mother and his brother—had done crashed down on him like a tidal wave. They hadn't just been mean; they had attempted to destroy his world.
"Can I see her?" Andrés asked, his voice shaking.
"Yes. But she is sleeping under heavy sedatives," Dr. Armenta warned, standing up and placing a sympathetic hand on Andrés's shoulder. "And Mr. Salgado? I am legally obligated to inform you that because of the nature of the injuries and your wife's statements upon arrival, hospital social services have already notified the Public Ministry and local authorities. An investigation for domestic abuse and unlawful imprisonment has been opened."
May you like
Andrés swallowed hard, his jaw tightening into a line of cold, unyielding steel.
"Good," Andrés said quietly. "Because I want to press charges. Against both of them."
