The miscarriage happened three days later.
I woke up in the middle of the night with cramps so severe they stole my breath. At first I told myself it was jet lag.
Then I felt the warmth between my thighs. In the dim light from the streetlamp, my hands came away red.
Time blurred after that. I remember the panic-bright rush of adrenaline.
Fumbling with my phone to call an emergency number. A stranger’s voice in French, then in halting English, telling me to stay calm.
The siren, thin and eerie. The sterile white of the hospital corridor.
The doctor—dark hair pulled back, kind eyes, glasses perched on her nose—introduced herself as Dr. Simone Lauron.
I remember her hand on my shoulder as she delivered the news I already knew.
“I’m so sorry, Madame Mitchell. The pregnancy has ended.”
The world tilted. I clutched the thin hospital sheet, knuckles white.
My body felt hollowed out, like something vital had been scooped from inside me.
I’d lost a baby before I even had the chance to fully believe in its existence.
I didn’t cry in front of the doctors. I asked practical questions.
About my hormones, about future fertility, about what I should do next.
Years of medical appointments had trained me to be efficient around professionals.
It wasn’t until I was back in my little apartment that the dam cracked.
I lay on the couch and sobbed until my throat burned. I cried for the baby that would never be.
For all the babies who had never been. For the six years I’d spent contorting myself into whatever shape might make me worthy.
I let myself fall apart for one night.
The next morning, I called Dr. Lauron. “I’d like to schedule an appointment. Not for gynecology.”
“For talking.”
She paused. “For therapy?”
“Yes.”
“Can you come this afternoon? I had a cancellation.”
Finding My Way Forward
That first session with Simone was mostly me telling the story from the beginning.
She didn’t interrupt much. Just asked a few gentle questions, took notes, handed me tissues.
At the end, she said, “You have been through an extraordinary amount in a very short time, Caroline.”
“It feels stupid to call it trauma,” I muttered. “People go through worse.”
She smiled faintly. “Pain is not a competition. What you experienced is real.”
Week after week, in that small office with the crooked Monet print, we unpacked the six years I’d spent under the Mitchell microscope.
And in between sessions, I started building a life. I took a marketing position at a small French cosmetics company.
I stumbled through conversations in French. I learned to navigate the markets.
To buy fresh bread in the morning and vegetables in the afternoon.
At night, when the quiet felt heavy, I reminded myself that I had options.
That I wasn’t just hiding. I was planning.
Three weeks after I arrived in Paris, Patty called.
“Got it,” she said without preamble.
“Got what?”
“Derek’s DNA sample. The judge granted our request. Court-ordered paternity test.”
“The sample is documented and sealed.”
I walked to the window, pressing my palm to the cool glass. “We’ll need it.”
“So what’s our next move?”
“I need to know who Amber really is,” I said. “Where she came from.”
“What she wants. Whether those babies she’s carrying are actually Derek’s.”
“That will require someone who can dig deeper than I can from court filings,” Patty said.
“Let me make a call.”
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