Chapter 1: The Hospital Room
The VIP maternity suite at St. Jude’s Medical Center was designed to resemble a high-end luxury hotel rather than a hospital. It featured soft, recessed lighting, plush seating for guests, and a sprawling, comfortable bed that didn’t squeak or smell of harsh bleach. I had paid for the upgrade entirely out of my own personal savings, wanting a quiet, comfortable sanctuary to recover in after the impending birth of my first child.
I was twenty-eight years old, and I was exhausted to the very marrow of my bones.
I had just endured a grueling, complicated twenty-hour labor. My body felt as though it had been repeatedly hit by a freight train. Every muscle ached, my vision was slightly blurry from fatigue, and my hands trembled faintly as I held my beautiful, sleeping newborn daughter against my chest.
Despite the physical agony, the room should have been filled with profound, overwhelming joy. It should have been the happiest day of my life.
Instead, the atmosphere was suffocating, toxic, and incredibly hostile.
Sitting in the plush leather corner chair, entirely ignoring the miraculous new life breathing softly in the room, was my husband, Mark. He was thirty years old, dressed in wrinkled sweatpants, and furiously, aggressively tapping on his smartphone with both thumbs. He was playing a competitive, multiplayer mobile game. He hadn’t held the baby since she was cleaned by the nurses. He hadn’t asked how I was feeling. He was completely, obsessively absorbed in his screen.
Mark was a man who believed the world existed entirely to serve his convenience. He ran a tech startup that was supposedly “on the verge of a massive breakthrough,” but in reality, he spent his days avoiding responsibility and complaining about how stressful his life was.
