He smiled.
“You know me.”
I did.
Or I thought I did.
Then there was the envelope.
A legal firm I didn’t recognize.
Addressed personally to James.
I noticed it on his desk one afternoon.
I never opened his mail.
So I left it there.
Then, about a month earlier, I had walked past the garage and heard him on the phone.
His voice was low.
Serious.
“Her son deserves to know the truth.”
I stopped outside the door.
I had been seven months pregnant.
Naturally, I assumed he meant our baby.
Maybe insurance.
Family medical history.
Something boring.
When he came inside, I asked who he had been talking to.
“Work thing.”
And I believed him.
Now every one of those moments felt different.
Nurse Maeve returned.
“Any decision?”
I looked at the clipboard.
“Just a little longer.”
She nodded.
“No problem.”
My mother waited until she left.
“You are exhausted.”
“I know.”
“You just had a baby.”
“I know.”
“Your husband is behaving strangely.”
“I know.”
“Then let me help you.”
She placed the pen in my hand.
“Write Owen.”
My fingers closed around it.
The tip hovered over the paper.
My hand shook.
I thought about my father.
About Mom alone in a hospital room decades earlier.
About all the years she spent warning me that men could leave without warning.
Then I thought about James.
The crib.
The socks.
The fourteen hours holding my hand.
The way he had cried when Owen was born.
And the words he used before walking out.
Not:
Don’t name him Owen.
He had said:
Don’t fill out the birth certificate until I get back.
There was a difference.
I lowered the pen.
Mom stared at me.
“Olivia.”
“I’m waiting.”
“You’re making a mistake.”
“Maybe.”
“You sound like me before your father left.”
I looked at her.
“Maybe I don’t want to make decisions because of what Dad did to you.”
Her face changed.
“I’m trying to protect you.”
“I know.”
“Then listen.”
“I am listening.”
I put the pen down.
“But James isn’t Dad.”
“You don’t know that yet.”
“No.”
I looked toward the door.
“But neither do you.”
The next hour was terrible.
Four o’clock.
Then four-thirty.
Owen woke and cried.
I fed him.
Mom paced.
Five o’clock.
Still no James.
By then, even my confidence was starting to collapse.
I checked my phone every thirty seconds.
Nothing.
At 5:43, I heard the elevator doors open down the hall.
Footsteps followed.
Then another sound.
Wheels.
Slowly rolling across the hospital floor.
Mom stood.
I held Owen closer.
The door opened.
James stepped inside.
His eyes were red.
Not guilty.
Not nervous.
Red from crying.
He was pushing a wheelchair.
A woman sat in it.
