But something inside me ceased.
I had taken the staff corridor instead of the main one because the OR elevators were backed up. That route passed near the maternity wing before cutting across to the physicians’ lounge. I had walked that corridor a thousand times without looking through the glass doors, without noticing balloons, flowers, exhausted fathers, grandmothers with wet eyes.
That day, I looked.
And there he was.
Grant.
Not in France. Not in Lyon. Not crossing the Atlantic with bad hotel coffee in his future.
He was standing in the maternity wing outside Room 417, still wearing the navy suit, still wearing the anniversary watch I had given him, cradling a newborn against his chest.
His face was transformed.
I had seen Grant proud. I had seen him persuasive. I had seen him grieving when we lost our pregnancies, or what I thought was grief. But I had never seen him look like that.
Reverent.
Possessive.
Complete.
A woman stood beside him in a pale blue robe, one hand on his arm. She was young, maybe thirty, with honey-blonde hair pulled into a loose braid and the soft, emptied face of someone who had just given birth. She leaned into him like she belonged there.
Grant bent his head and whispered something to her.
She smiled.
Then she touched the baby’s cheek and said something back.
My hands were still marked faintly with antiseptic. My surgical cap was in my pocket. I smelled like latex, blood, and eight hours of saving another family’s future.
My husband was holding his child.
His lover’s child.
A nurse came through the doors carrying a tray. For one second, the opening widened, and sound spilled into the hallway.
The baby made a tiny animal noise.
Grant laughed.
I had not heard him laugh like that in years.
Leave a Comment