was pregnant was the s

till hanging in my small Queens apartment. The next, I was taking a shortcut through a Brooklyn alley afte

ld wen

a hospital and the muffled, franti

can you hear me?

d nearly shattered his hands, almost ending his brilliant career as a coder before it even began. I found the driver, a terrified young woman named Mari

s devoted fiancée, the aspiring pastry chef who put her dreams on hold

mpenetrable darkness. Panic seized me, cold and sharp. I squeez

or. "You were mugged. They caught the guy. He's going to prison for

ying reality. But as I drifted in the space between consciousness an

gent, speaking to someone

e permanent?

d," a clinical voice replied. "The

on my hand tighten, not in sorrow, but

er. "Now, about the other procedure. The trauma f

significant risk

g no room for argument. "It's a medical necessity. Blame it on the attack.

tiny life I had just discovered, a se

. Lester, a hysterectomy

tion. I owe her everything. This is how I make things right. Jocelyn will be taken care of, but Maria and my son, Leo, wi

ced everything for, was the architect of my ruin. The mugging, the blindness, the l