Love Like Snow on Fingertips

After five years of IVF and seven months of pregnancy, Lucy went into premature labor. She was hemorrhaging, her life hanging by a thread.

The husband who had always professed to love her to the bone was nowhere to be found. Neither was the college girl he had kept on standby as her emergency blood donor.

She wanted to scream his name, to demand an answer, but another contraction seized her—a tearing agony that threatened to split her body apart.

"Ryan... Where's Ryan?"

Watching her sister's face blanch with pain, Amy wept as she dialled her brother-in-law’s number thirty-two times. Each call was met only by the desperate, endless tone of a busy signal.

"The mother has a rare blood type! We're running out!"

"Her blood pressure's still dropping!"

"Didn't Mr. Ryan arrange a backup donor? Where is she?!"

Faced with the doctor's furious shouts, Amy trembled, tears streaming down her face. "My brother-in-law's phone... it's switched off."

Before she could say more, another violent contraction twisted Lucy's abdomen.

Before her consciousness faded, Lucy cast one last glance toward the operating room door.

Ryan still hadn't come.

She didn't know how much time had passed when she finally woke in the hospital bed.

Her hand moved to her flat, empty stomach, and a wave of crushing dread and grief washed over her.

"The baby..."

Struggling to sit up, she searched for her child, but saw only her red-eyed sister.

"Lucy... I thought you'd never wake up..."

"The baby... where's my baby?!" Her voice was a frail thread as she clutched Amy's sleeve, tears brimming.

"The doctors said they couldn't save her... It was too dangerous. If they hadn't performed the C-section, you wouldn't have made it..."

"Where's Ryan?"

Amy's expression darkened. "I've been here for three days and nights. He hasn't come."

Her sister's words made Lucy's world spin. The heartache hit like a physical blow, threatening to drag her back into the darkness.

Her precious baby, nurtured for seven months and filled with so many hopes and dreams, had never even opened her eyes to see this world.

This was the child Ryan had longed for day and night. Yet now, as the father, he hadn't bothered to see them even once.

Gasping for air, Lucy dialled Ryan's number again.

This time, his assistant answered.

"Where is Ryan?"

Faced with her demand, the assistant hesitated. "Mr. Ryan... is busy."

The man's evasive tone sent a chill straight through Lucy's heart.

"Tell Ryan to come to the hospital. Now."

Wiping her tears, she hung up with a sharp click.

With Amy's support, Lucy finally went to the morgue to see that tiny, cold form.

Her baby, the one she couldn't protect. A little girl. Lucy bent, breathing warm air onto the child's icy little hand.

"Sweetheart, Mommy's taking you home."

Cradling her daughter, Lucy walked with purpose to a specific address—the apartment where Ryan kept the college girl, Ruth.

She wanted Ryan to see their child one last time.

But