Chapter 165
Elara’s POV
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$5 vu
The NICU was a strange combination of white walls and soft pink lighting, designed to be calming but somehow making everything feel more surreal. Elara sat in a wheelchair between two incubators, her hands pressed against the clear plastic sides like she could somehow transfer strength through the barrier.
Her babies. So impossibly small and fragile.
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Baby A was on the left, a little girl who’d come out crying and hadn’t stopped fighting since. Even now Elara could see her tiny chest rising and falling with steady breaths, her miniature fists clenched like she was ready to punch her way through whatever challenges came next. The nurses had already nicknamed her Fighter.
Baby B was on the right. A boy, delicate and struggling. He had a ventilator tube down his throat helping him breathe, monitors attached to every inch of his tiny body, IV lines running into veins so small Elara couldn’t understand how the nurses had even found them.
“You can touch them,” one of the nurses said gently. She was an older woman. “Not for long because they need to stay warm, but you can put your hand through the porthole and stroke their skin. It helps them know you’re here.”
Elara’s hands were shaking as she reached through the opening in Baby A’s incubator. Her skin was so soft it barely felt real, warm under her fingertips. She traced along her tiny arm and watched as her fist unclenched slightly at her touch.
“Hi baby,” she whispered. “I’m your mama. I know you didn’t want to wait any longer to meet us but you came a little too early. You’re doing so good though. So strong.”
The baby made a small noise that might have been a whimper or might have been nothing and Elara felt tears streaming down her face. She’d held it together through the surgery.
But now, touching her daughter for the first time, feeling her heartbeat under her palm, she couldn’t hold back anymore.
“They’re beautiful,” Mimi said from behind her. She’d been sitting in the corner giving Elara space but now she moved closer. “Elara, they’re absolutely perfect.”
“They’re so small. Baby A is three pounds and Baby B is only two and a half. The doctor said that’s actually good for twenty-eight weeks but they look like dolls, Mimi. Like they might break if I breathe wrong.”
“They’re tougher than they look. Just like their mother.”
Elara reluctantly pulled her hand back from Baby A and moved to Baby B’s incubator. The porthole was smaller here because of all the equipment, but she managed to slip her hand through and rest it gently on her
son’s chest.
The rise and fall wasn’t natural like his sister’s. It was mechanical, controlled by the ventilator pushing air into lungs that weren’t quite ready to work on their own yet. But underneath the machinery Elara could feel a heartbeat, quick and fluttering like a bird’s wings.
17:03 Mon, May 11 …
Chapter 163
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2)
“You have to fight,” Elara whispered. “I know it’s hard and I know you’re tired but you have to keep fighting Your Sister needs you. Your daddy needs you. I need you.”
Dr. Harrison appeared beside the incubator.
“How is he?” Elara asked, even though she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer.
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“Holding steady for now. His oxygen saturation is lower than we’d like and his heart is working harder than it should be, but he’s stable. We’re going to take him into surgery within the next few hours to repair the valve damage from the twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome.”
“Is he strong enough for surgery?”
“He’s strong enough that waiting would be more dangerous than operating. The longer we leave the valve damaged, the more strain it puts on his heart. We need to fix it now while he still has the reserves to recover.”
Elara nodded even though nothing about this made sense. Her son was two and a half pounds and about to have open heart surgery. How was any of that supposed to be okay?
“Your mother is on her way,” Mimi said softly. “I called her from the waiting room. She’s so excited to meet her grandchildren.”
The mention of her mother made Elara’s chest ache with a different kind of emotion. The woman who’d been dying in a hospital bed just months ago was now healthy enough to travel across the city to meet her grandchildren.
If Elara hadn’t needed money for her mother’s treatment, she never would have signed that contract with Marcus. Never would have married him, never would have fallen in love with him, never would have created these two tiny humans currently fighting for their lives in plastic boxes.
“Mrs. Thorne?” A different nurse approached, younger than the first one. “Your husband just called. He’s on his way and should be here in about ten minutes. He asked me to tell you that the board meeting went well and Penelope has been arrested.”
Elara felt a surge of relief so strong it made her dizzy. “Arrested? For what?”
“He didn’t say, just that you’d understand.”
“Good,” Elara said fiercely. “I hope they throw away the key into the ocean.”
The NICU doors opened and Marcus rushed in looking like he’d run the entire way from the parking garage. His hair was wild, his tie was gone, and his eyes were red-rimmed with exhaustion and fear.
“Elara,” he breathed, crossing to her in three long strides. “Are you okay? Are they….”
He stopped mid-sentence when he saw the incubators. Saw his children for the first time.
Elara watched his face transform, watched shock and love and terror and wonder all flash across his features in the space of a heartbeat. He moved to Baby A’s incubator first and just stared, his hand pressed against the plastic like he was afraid to actually touch.
17:03 Mon, May 11 M…
Chapter 165
“That’s our daughter,” Elara said softly. “The nurses call him Fighter. He’s doing really well, all things considered.”
Marcus made a sound that was half laugh, half sob. “She’s so small. El, she’s so tiny. How is something this small even alive?”
“Modern medicine and pure stubbornness. She takes after you.”
Marcus moved to Baby B’s incubator and Elara saw his expression shift when he took in all the equipment, all the wires and tubes keeping their son alive.
“And this is our son,” Elara continued. “He’s struggling more. They’re taking him into surgery soon to fix her heart valve.”
“Surgery.” Marcus’s voice was hollow. “He’s two days old and he needs surgery.”
“He needs it to survive. Dr. Harrison says he’s strong enough.”
Marcus reached through the porthole with shaking hands and touched their son’s foot, so small it barely filled his palm. “Hey champ. I’m your dad. I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you were born but I’m here now and I’m not going anywhere. You hear me? I’m going to be right here the whole time.”
They stood there together, Marcus and Elara, with one hand each on their children. Trying to will strength and life and health through their fingertips into these fragile little beings who’d come into the world too soon and too small.
The moment felt suspended, precious and terrifying in equal measure.
And then Baby B’s monitors started making a sound Elara had never heard before. A high-pitched alarm that cut through the relative quiet of the NICU like a knife.
Doctors and nurses rushed in from all directions, surrounding the incubator and blocking Elara’s view of her
son.
“What’s happening?” Marcus demanded. “What’s wrong with him?”
“His oxygen saturation is dropping,” Dr. Harrison said, her hands already moving efficiently over equipment. “We need to intubate deeper and increase the ventilator settings. Get me the crash cart just in case.”
Just in case? Just in case what? Doctor???
