Chapter 1 - The Broken Floorboards
The unmistakable stench of rancid garlic butter and stale pepperoni hit my nostrils the exact second the key clicked in the brass deadbolt.
My lower back was throbbing with a dull, burning ache after fourteen hours on the concrete floor of the freight logistics warehouse. My steel-toed boots dragged against the welcome mat like lead anchors. All I had fantasized about on the forty-minute drive home through the freezing rain was a hot plate of leftover stew, a quiet room, and wrapping my arms around my eight-months-pregnant wife, Nora. I wanted to feel our baby girl kick against my palm. I wanted thirty minutes of peace before the alarm dragged me back to hell at five in the morning.
Instead, the thunderous roar of canned sitcom laughter and screeching voices blasted through the cracked mahogany door.
I pushed the door open, and my stomach instantly plummeted.
The living room looked like a fraternity basement after a three-day bender. Greasy cardboard pizza boxes were stacked haphazardly across our coffee table, crushing the prenatal vitamins Nora was supposed to take with every meal. Crumpled soda cans, empty beer bottles, and discarded plastic wrappers littered the rug. Propped up on my favorite leather recliner was my mother, Marla, double-fisting a bag of sour cream potato chips while laughing hysterically at the television screen.
Sprawled across the sectional sofa were my three younger sisters: Paige, Tessa, and Brooke. Paige had her bare feet resting directly on Nora’s handmade knitted throw blanket, texting furiously on the new smartphone I had stupidly financed for her three months ago.
"Hey, Ryan," Brooke muttered without bothering to glance up from her phone screen. "You didn't bring home any hot wings, did you? The pizza guy forgot the extra ranch and Tessa threw a fit."
I didn't answer. The air in my lungs turned into dry ash. My gaze ripped away from the garbage in the living room and locked onto the pale, flickering fluorescent light leaking from the kitchen doorway.
There she was.
Nora was standing barefoot on the ice-cold ceramic tile. Her swollen, heavy belly—tight and round with our first child—was pressed painfully against the wet porcelain lip of the sink. She was leaning forward at an unnatural, agonizing angle, her tiny wrists shaking violently as she scrubbed a massive cast-iron skillet caked with burnt cheese. The sink was piled so high with crusty plates, greasy pots, and dirty silverware that water was trickling over the counter and splashing onto her bare feet. Her yellow cotton sundress was completely soaked at the hem.
She was trembling from her shoulders all the way down to her ankles, her breath coming in shallow, wheezing gasps.
"Nora?" My voice cracked, raw with a sudden, violent terror.
She spun around at the sound of my voice, and what I saw shattered something deep inside my chest. Her face was paper-white, completely hollowed out, with sickly dark-purple rings carved beneath her bloodshot eyes. Her lips were chapped and bleeding where she had bitten down on them to keep from crying out. When her gaze met mine, there wasn't relief—there was pure, paralyzing dread.
"Ryan... you're home early," she stammered, her voice shaking like a leaf caught in a gale. "I’m sorry. I swear I’m trying to finish. They... they asked for late-night snacks and three different kinds of pasta, and I couldn't get the grease off the pans before you—"
"What the hell are you doing?!" I roared, dropping my heavy steel lunchbox. It hit the hardwood floor with a deafening crash that echoed down the hallway.
I crossed the kitchen in two violent strides, shoving the dirty dishes away and grabbing her icy, wrinkled hands. Her fingers were freezing, pruned from hours under running water. "Why are you standing here? Why aren't you resting in bed? Where is your dinner?!"
From the living room, Marla’s grating voice pierced the air, dripping with theatrical annoyance. "Oh, for heaven’s sake, Ryan! Don't start coddling her the second you walk through the door! We’ve been waiting for clean glasses for two hours! Being pregnant isn't a terminal illness. In my day, I cleaned the entire house, worked forty hours a week, and cooked five-course meals until the hour my water broke! She's just being lazy!"
"Shut up, Mom!" I yelled back, my vocal cords tearing.
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Nora flinched as if she had been struck. She opened her mouth to whisper something to me, but the words died in her throat. Her eyes rolled backward into her head. A guttural, animalistic groan of sheer agony ripped from her chest, and both of her hands flew to the lower curve of her swollen stomach.
Her knees buckled completely, and she began to plummet straight toward the hard tile.
