Homer picked up a piece of blanched greens with his chopsticks and set it in my bowl, his voice soft. "Just a few bites. The baby needs you to eat."
He looked so devoted. How could any of it be an act?
But I knew. All of it was a lie.
"I really can't..."
His patience snapped. "You won't eat, but the baby has to. Stop acting like a child!"
He seized my jaw, fingers digging in, and tried to force the greens into my mouth.
I wrenched free, but I understood his resolve now.
Despair closed over me like water. I blinked back tears and picked up my chopsticks. "I'll eat."
Once this meal was finished, everything would be over.
In the dead of night, the pain tore through my abdomen. Blood seeped from between my legs, spreading across the sheets in a slow, dark stain.
Homer called out toward the door, and Dr. Shepherd walked in at once, as though he had been waiting just outside.
The agony had blurred my vision, but I still heard Dr. Shepherd's careful, measured words: "My lord, the lady's previous miscarriage already damaged her body. If we don't intervene now, she may never conceive again."