Lauren allowed herself to be guided toward a wheelchair. Jack stood frozen between us.
For one second, I thought he would come to me.
He looked at me with such miserable pleading that some wounded, trained part of me almost softened. He wanted me to understand. He wanted me to make this easier for him. Even then, even standing in the wreckage of his betrayal, he was asking me to manage his discomfort.
Then Lauren made a small sound, half sob, half command.
“Jack.”
He turned.
He followed her.
He walked away from me in the hospital where we were supposed to become parents.
He did not look back.
I bent slowly to pick up the ultrasound prints, but my body would not cooperate. My belly was too heavy. My knees shook. The floor swam. An older nurse with gray hair cut neatly at her jaw stepped beside me and crouched before I could.
“I’ve got them, sweetheart,” she said.
Her voice was low, private, merciful.
She gathered the prints and placed them into my hands. The kindness nearly broke me harder than the cruelty had.
“Do you need to sit?”
I nodded because speech had left me.
She led me to a chair near a window overlooking the gray parking lot. Rain had started again, fine and silver, streaking the glass. I sat with both hands over my son and tried to breathe through a body that had become foreign to me.
“What’s your name?” the nurse asked.
“Emily.”
“I’m Denise. Are you here alone?”
I almost said no. Habit is strange. It reaches for the old answer even after the truth has murdered it.
“Yes,” I said. “I’m alone.”
Another cramp tightened across my belly.
This time, it was not imaginary.
Denise saw my face change.
“How far apart?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Pain level?”
I gripped the edge of the chair.
“Getting worse.”
Her expression shifted from sympathy to medical focus.
