The rain in Seattle doesn’t wash things away; it just makes them heavier. It was a Thursday afternoon, specifically 3:14 PM, when the illusion of my perfect life began to crack. I was kneeling on the shearling rug in the nursery, the fibers soft against my swollen knees. Outside, the gray sky pressed against the glass of our twelfth-floor apartment, but inside, everything was warm tones and soft edges.
I was folding a onesie. It was a pale, buttery yellow, the kind of color that promises spring even in the depths of winter. My hand rested on the fabric, smoothing out a tiny embroidered duck, while my other hand instinctively drifted to the basketball-sized mound of my belly. Eight months. “Just a few more weeks, little guy,” I whispered to the empty room. “Then we get to meet you.”
The silence was peaceful, a rare commodity in the city. And then, the phone rang. It wasn’t a polite chime; it was a shrill, invasive trill that seemed to vibrate through the floorboards.
I groaned, using the edge of the crib to hoist myself up. My lower back gave a familiar throb of protest. I waddled toward the dresser, checking the time but ignoring the Caller ID. I assumed it was Michael asking if I needed anything from the grocery store.
“Hello?” I answered, putting it on speaker so I could rub my aching hip.
The voice that filled the room wasn’t Michael’s warm baritone. It was flat, professional, and terrifyingly detached.
“Mrs. Thompson? Laura Thompson?”
I froze. The atmosphere in the room shifted instantly. “Yes, that’s me.”
“This is Officer Miller with the Washington State Patrol. I’m calling regarding your husband, Michael Thompson. There has been a collision on I-5 South, near the Tacoma dome.”
The world tilted on its axis. The yellow onesie slipped from my fingers, fluttering silently to the floor like a surrender flag.
“A collision?” My voice sounded small, like a child’s. “Is… is he okay?”
The silence that followed was thick with protocol. I could hear the static of a radio in the background, the ghost of a siren.
“He is alive, ma’am,” the officer said, though his tone didn’t offer much comfort. “He’s been transported to Mercy General by ambulance. He’s conscious, but the vehicle took significant damage.”
“I’m coming,” I said, already moving toward the door, my nesting instinct replaced by a primal panic. “I’m on my way.”
“Ma’am,” the officer interrupted, his voice sharpening slightly. “There is one more thing. He wasn’t the only occupant in the vehicle. The passenger was also transported.”
I stopped with my hand on the doorknob. The words didn’t compute. Michael was in sales; he drove clients around all the time. But on a Thursday afternoon heading toward Tacoma?
“A client?” I asked, my breath catching. “Was it a work trip?”
“We don’t have relationship details in the preliminary, Mrs. Thompson. Just that the passenger, a female, was also injured. You should get to Mercy General. Drive safely.”
The line went dead.
The Longest Drive Through the Rain-Soaked City
I don’t remember taking the elevator down. I don’t remember starting the car. I only remember the rhythmic slap of windshield wipers battling the relentless drizzle and the cold knot of dread in my stomach that had nothing to do with the baby.
He wasn’t alone.
The phrase played on a loop in my mind. Of course, he could have been with a client. Maybe a corporate buyer from Portland. Maybe an intern. But Michael was the sales manager at a luxury dealership; he didn’t do test drives on the interstate. He sat in a glass office and signed papers.
My intuition, sharpened by pregnancy hormones, was screaming at me. It felt visceral, a nausea that rose from my gut.
I parked the car crookedly in the emergency lot, not caring about the lines. I ran—or moved as fast as a woman in her third trimester can—toward the sliding glass doors. The hospital air hit me instantly: a cocktail of floor wax, antiseptic, and old coffee.
“My husband,” I gasped, gripping the high counter of the reception desk. “Michael Thompson. Car accident.”
The receptionist, a woman with tired eyes and chipping nail polish, didn’t look up immediately. She typed something, the clicks of the keyboard echoing like gunshots in my ears.
“ER, Wing B,” she said finally, pointing a pen down a long, sterile corridor. “Check with the charge nurse at the station.”
I walked. The hallway felt like a tunnel. I passed gurneys, doctors in blue scrubs, and families huddled in plastic chairs. People looked at me—the frantic pregnant woman with wet hair and wide eyes—and looked away, embarrassed by my naked fear.
At the Wing B station, a formidable nurse with graying hair looked up from a chart.
“Laura Thompson?” she asked before I could speak.
“Yes. Is he…?”
“He’s stable,” she said, her voice softening just a fraction. “Fractured left arm, concussion, significant bruising. But he’s awake. The doctor is wrapping up an assessment.”
My knees actually gave out. I grabbed the edge of the desk to keep from sliding to the floor. “Thank God. Thank God.”
“We need you to sign the admission paperwork,” she said, sliding a clipboard toward me.
I took the pen, my hand trembling. I looked down at the form. The top section was already filled out by the intake staff.
Patient Name: Michael Thompson. DOB: 05/12/1988. Admitted from: MVA, I-5 South.
My eyes drifted lower, to the notes scribbled in the margins, likely by the EMTs who brought them in together.
Passenger: Jessica Ramirez. Admitted Bed 15.
The pen clattered onto the desk. The sound was deafening in the quiet hum of the hospital.
“Jessica?” I whispered.
The air left my lungs, replaced by a vacuum of pure shock.
“Mrs. Thompson?” the nurse asked, concerned.
I stared at the name. Jessica Ramirez.
She wasn’t a client. She wasn’t an intern. She was my neighbor. Unit 1202.
Jessica, the yoga instructor with the perfect posture and the shy, hardworking husband named David. Jessica, who had come over three days ago with a jar of blackberry jam she’d made herself. Jessica, who had sat on my sofa, touched my belly, and told me how radiant I looked.
“You’re so lucky, Laura,” she had said, her eyes shimmering with something I had mistaken for admiration. “Michael is such a good provider. You have the perfect little family starting.”
A wave of dizziness hit me. It wasn’t just that he was with another woman. It was that he was with her. My friend. The woman I trusted with my spare key.
“Where is she?” I asked. My voice was no longer trembling. It was cold, hardened by a sudden, jagged realization.
The nurse hesitated. She looked from me to the curtained area behind her. “Both patients from the accident were placed in the trauma observation bay. They are… next to each other.”