He told me it was an accident. She was trying to leave. She’d run for the stairs and he tried to stop her. He grabbed her arm, trying to pull her back from the stairs so he could take her back to her room but then she jerked away from him and when she did, she lost her balance and fell backward, down the stairs. That was the scream I’d heard. Her falling. Stephen kept repeating that it was an accident, that he didn’t mean to hurt her. He begged me to believe him. I didn’t respond to him. I couldn’t. I had to focus on El. I rushed past Stephen and ran down the stairs to the second floor landing where she was lying, motionless.
I knelt down beside her, my hands trembling as I checked for a pulse. I let out a sigh of relief. She had a pulse. It was weak, but it was there. I looked up at Stephen and told him that she was alive and needed help. I begged him to call for an ambulance. He hesitated a moment then nodded and pulled out his phone. He started to dial a number and I assumed that it was an emergency number. I held El’s hand and told her that everything was going to be okay. We were going to get her help and she would be fine. I was a fool though. Stephen never called for help, at least, not help for Eleanor.
A few minutes later I heard footsteps running up the stairs from the main floor. I turned to look, thinking there was no way paramedics could have made it to the mansion that quickly. There was no way. And I was right. It wasn’t the paramedics. I saw Thomas, Stephen’s steward, rushing up the stairs with Lilian right behind him. For a moment, a brief moment, I thought that maybe Stephen had called Thomas so they could take El to the hospital themselves. I was hopeful, praying that they would help but then the three of them began to argue with each other.
I was horrified but what I was hearing. They were more worried about how it would look if the police showed up. Thomas told Stephen that he would be blamed for it, probably arrested. Lilian was crying, but not for El. She was worried about Stephen and what would happen to her, worried that they could lose everything. I couldn’t believe how cold and callus they were being. El was laying on the floor, unconscious, maybe dying, and all they cared about were themselves. It was finally decided that Thomas would take El to her room then, they could assess her injuries, maybe call a doctor if they needed to.
I was beside myself with worry and outrage at what they were proposing. El needed to go to a hospital, she needed help, but they weren’t concerned about her at all. I tried to protest but Stephen told me everything would be fine, El would be fine. I wanted to believe him, to believe that everything would be okay, El would be okay, but I knew better. I told him no, if they wouldn’t call for help then I would. I pulled my phone out but then Thomas grabbed my hand. That was when the true nature of these people were revealed to me.
Thomas told me to think about what I was doing. If I called an ambulance, or the police, they could just as easily blame me, say that I had pushed her. It would be three against one and I was an omega so who were the authorities going to believe? I was implicated now and the only way to keep myself safe, and keep my family safe, was to just go along with whatever I was told to do. My heart sank at his words because I knew he was right. If I didn’t do what they wanted, they could destroy my life. Destroy my parents lives. I hated myself for agreeing to go along with their plan but what choice did I have?
Thomas and Stephen took El to her room and laid her on the bed. Lilian and I changed her into a nightgown and did our best to keep her comfortable. Lilian thought El might have a concussion and said that we would need to watch her throughout the night. She didn’t appear to have any visible injuries, thank God, but I’m not a nurse and had no idea if she had internal injuries or not. I did notice a few bruises and scrapes on her arm and shoulder but nothing appeared to be broken as far as I could tell. I urged Lilian to call their doctor. El needed to be examined by a processional. Lilian told me to just keep watching her and if she got any worse, they would call the doctor.
I agreed though something told me that she was again lying to me. Would they really call the doctor? They wouldn’t just let her lay there and suffer, would they? Well, the answer to that question came soon enough. El was in and out of consciousness for most of the night and then, around midnight, the unthinkable happened. El’s water broke. That’s it, I thought. They would have to call someone now. I ran to Lilian and told her what had happened, expecting that she would call an ambulance or the doctor, somebody. Instead, she went to El’s room to check on her and I suppose to see if I had been telling the truth.
report Once she had seen that El was, in fact, in labor, she rushed off to tell Stephen. I sat by El’s bedside, holding her hand, and waiting for the moment when Lilian would come in and tell me that help was on the way. That moment never came though. About ten minutes later, Lilian came into the room and told me that we were going to have to deliver the baby ourselves. I was floored. I didn’t think for one second that she could be serious. But she was. I had almost convinced myself that this was some kind of nightmare and I wanted so badly to wake up from it. Her and I deliver a child? What could be more absurd?
Lilian told me to go into the other room and bring her the emergency birthing kit she’d ordered and stored in the wardrobe in case it was ever needed. I did as I was told but couldn’t help but wonder, was she just being overly cautious, or had she planned to deliver the baby at home all along? I was suspicious but didn’t have time to worry about it. El needed me and I was determined to do what I could to help.
Now, you may be wondering, why I didn’t just go into the other room and call for help myself? Well, one reason is because Stephen and his man servant Thomas were in the nursery waiting. They would have heard me and I couldn’t very well run out into the hall. They would have been suspicious. Another reason, well, I was scared. They had already threatened to put the blame on me. Even if I tried to defend myself in court they had the money and the power to bury me. There was no way that I could fight the Reaney family. I was in deep, way over my head, and the only thing I knew to do was keep my head down and my mouth shut.
So, I did as I was told. I found the birthing kit easily enough. I large navy blue, canvas bag that conveniently had ‘birthing kit’ stenciled on the side in large, white, letters. I picked up the bag and carried it into the other room and handed it over to Lilian. She laid a clean towel down on a dresser and began to set out the supplies we’d need. She acted with such confidence that it made me wonder if she’d been researching what to do in case of a home birth.
She had already gathered clean towels and sheets while I was in the other room and laid them, folded, at the end of the dresser. From the kit she placed down a box of sterile surgical gloves, a pair of scissors, a flash light, cleansing wipes, and disposable wash rags. She also had a bottle of antiseptic solution for sterilizing the tools she would need and a bottle of antiseptic soap.