Chapter 2 - The Neighbor Who Refused to Walk AwayThree days earlier...
As Ryan's sports car disappeared around the corner, Emma lay motionless on the nursery floor.
Blood continued to spread across the cream-colored carpet.
Ethan's cries grew weaker.
Across the street, seventy-two-year-old Margaret Dawson looked up from watering her roses.
She frowned.
The baby had been crying for nearly forty minutes.
Something wasn't right.
Margaret had lived in the neighborhood for thirty years.
She knew babies cried.
But mothers always answered.
Emma always answered.
She walked across the street and rang the doorbell.
No response.
She knocked harder.
"Emma?"
Still nothing.
Then she heard Ethan again.
The cry was weak.
Almost exhausted.
Margaret tried the doorknob.
Locked.
Without another second of hesitation, she called 911.
"I think my neighbor is in trouble."
Within six minutes, firefighters arrived.
After receiving emergency authorization from dispatch due to the sounds of a distressed infant, they forced open the front door.
The house was silent.
Then one firefighter shouted,
"Upstairs!"
They rushed into the nursery.
Every experienced paramedic stopped for one heartbreaking second.
Emma lay unconscious in a pool of dried and fresh blood.
Barely breathing.
One arm was still stretched toward Ethan's bassinet.
The tiny baby cried with what little strength he had left.
"Mother has no radial pulse!"
"Massive postpartum hemorrhage!"
"Infant is alive!"
The room exploded into action.
One paramedic lifted Ethan.
Another began emergency treatment on Emma.
As they carried her downstairs, Margaret stood frozen on the porch.
"Is she going to live?" she whispered.
May you like
A paramedic looked at her honestly.
"We're going to do everything we can."
