Chapter 19 - The Post-Mortem Birth Certificate
Clara screamed.
The sound tore from her throat, swallowed by the roar of the hurricane outside. She bore down with every fiber of her being, her hands clawing into Eleanor’s tweed shoulders.
The stone door splintered.
*CRACK!*
A crowbar punched through the center wood panel. Julian’s wild, rain-drenched face appeared in the gap, his eyes gleaming with psychotic frenzy.
"Mother?" Julian gasped, his voice cracking between shock and murderous rage. "You old whore... you were supposed to be rotting in a padded cell!"
"I gave birth to you in the dark, Julian," Eleanor screamed back, not looking at him, her bloody hands supporting the infant’s emerging head. "And I will watch you die in the dark!"
"Push, Clara! PUSH!" Eleanor commanded.
Clara gave one final, agonizing heave, her spine arching off the canvas floor.
A sudden, warm release emptied from her body. The crushing pelvic pressure vanished, replaced by the sharp, piercing cry of a newborn child echoing against the stone walls.
"It’s a girl," Eleanor whispered, tears cutting through the grime on her face. She swiftly tied the umbilical cord with a strip of clean canvas and severed it with a sharp pocketknife. "A living, breathing Vance."
Outside, the wooden bar gave way with a thunderous snap.
The heavy door burst open.
Julian stepped into the shack, soaked in rain, holding the crowbar in his uninjured left hand. Behind him, Dr. Morrison stood in the doorway, his face wrapped in a bloody towel, holding a sterile umbilical clamp and a legal clipboard.
"Give me the child, Mother," Julian said, his voice dropping into a terrifying, dead calm.
He didn't look at Clara, who lay trembling, bleeding, and half-conscious on the floor. He stepped toward Eleanor, holding out his bloodstained hand.
"Morrison has the pre-signed birth certificate," Julian said, gesturing to the clipboard. "Mother: Clara Vance, deceased from post-partum hemorrhage. Father: Julian Vance, sole surviving legal guardian. Hand her over, and I won't have Morrison put you back in the ward. I’ll give you a cottage in France. You can live out your pathetic life in peace."
Eleanor clutched the screaming newborn against her chest, wrapping the child in her tweed coat.
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"She doesn't have your eyes, Julian," Eleanor whispered, stepping backward toward the open stone archway that led to the sheer cliff overlooking the roaring Atlantic surge. "She has Ethan’s."
***
