Chapter 2 - THE VOICE THAT SILENCED MY HUSBAND
“Daddy?”
My voice barely made it through my swollen lips.
For one terrible second, I thought the connection had failed.
Then my father spoke.
“Hannah, sweetheart. Tell me where you're hurt.”
His voice was calm.
Too calm.
I knew that voice. He had used it when I was nine and broke my arm falling out of an apple tree. He had used it when my mother died, and he had to tell me she wasn't coming home.
“I'm bleeding,” I whispered. “Carter hit me. His mother pushed me. Daddy, I can't feel the baby moving.”
Silence.
Then my father said, “Put the phone beside her, Carter.”
My husband laughed.
“Listen, old man. Your daughter has been acting hysterical all evening. She slipped, and now she's trying to blame us.”
“Put the phone beside her.”
“Or what? You'll come here on your tractor?”
Eleanor chuckled from the dining table.
I closed my eyes.
Even through the pain, I recognized something strange.
My father wasn't arguing.
He was listening.
“Hannah,” he said, “can you hear me?”
“Yes.”
“Don't try to stand. Keep breathing slowly. Help is coming.”
Carter's smile disappeared.
“What help?”
“An ambulance. I'm speaking to dispatch on another phone.”
Carter grabbed the phone.
“You had no right!”
“My daughter is thirty weeks pregnant, bleeding heavily, and unable to stand. I have every right to report an emergency.”
Eleanor rushed forward.
“Tell them she fell! We won't have the police coming here over her foolishness!”
My father heard every word.
“Mrs. Voss,” he said quietly, “I suggest you stop talking.”
Eleanor stiffened.
“How dare you speak to me like that?”
“Because my daughter is fighting for her life while you worry about your reputation.”
Carter slammed his fist against the counter.
“Enough! Listen carefully, farmer. I'm an attorney. My uncle Richard Voss is a senior prosecutor. Between us, we know every judge worth knowing in this county.”
My father replied, “Then you should understand what evidence is.”
Carter's expression changed.
“What's that supposed to mean?”
“Your wife's injuries. The broken telephone. The emergency call. The medical examination she's about to receive.”
He paused.
“And the statements you've made while refusing medical assistance.”
Carter swallowed.
“You can't prove anything.”
“I don't need to prove anything over the telephone.”
Then my father said something I would never forget.
“I need my daughter alive.”
Tears rolled into my hair.
For two years, I'd hidden the truth about my family.
Carter believed my father was an unsuccessful farmer outside Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
And he was a farmer.
He loved his sixty acres, his old red tractor, and the apple orchard my mother had planted.
But farming wasn't his only responsibility.
My father was Major General Daniel Mercer, the Adjutant General of Pennsylvania.
He had spent more than thirty years serving his country.
And unlike Carter, he had never believed a title made him more valuable than another human being.
Carter still didn't know.
Not until my father spoke again.
“My name is Major General Daniel R. Mercer. I'm currently in Harrisburg, and I'll be meeting my daughter at the hospital.”
Carter stared at the phone.
Eleanor's mouth fell open.
“Major... General?” Carter repeated.
“Yes.”
“The Daniel Mercer?”
“My daughter needs an ambulance, Mr. Voss. That's the only matter I intend to discuss with you.”
Carter pulled out his own phone.
His fingers shook as he searched my father's name.
I watched the color drain from his face.
Then came the sirens.
Two paramedics entered through the front door, followed by police officers.
Eleanor immediately started crying.
“She fell! I tried to catch her!”
One paramedic knelt beside me.
“Ma'am, can you tell me what happened?”
I looked toward Carter.
For two years, that look had been enough to make me change my answer.
But not tonight.
“My husband hit me,” I whispered. “His mother pushed me into the counter.”
The paramedic nodded.
“Thank you for telling me. We're going to help you.”
Carter stepped forward.
“She doesn't know what she's saying!”
An officer raised one hand.
“Sir, please step back.”
They lifted me carefully onto a stretcher.
Pain tore through my abdomen.
I screamed.
A paramedic checked my blood pressure while another secured the stretcher.
“She's losing blood. We need to move.”
I grabbed the nearest sleeve.
“My baby?”
The paramedic squeezed my hand.
“We're taking you somewhere they can check him properly.”
Outside, the cold November air touched my face.
The ambulance doors opened.
And just before they closed, I realized something that terrified me more than Carter's threats.
My son had been kicking all afternoon.
May you like
But since I'd hit that countertop...
I hadn't felt him move once.
