Chương 4
The same suit he wore when he wanted people to believe he was successful.
He held flowers.
For a moment, I hated that the gesture affected me.
Because it was exactly the kind of thing I had wanted from him.
Not expensive gifts.
Not grand displays.
Just proof that he noticed.
When I opened the door, he looked past me.
“Where’s Leo?”
“Sleeping.”
He nodded.
Then he looked at me.
“You look tired.”
I almost laughed.
It was such a small observation.
So late.
“I had a baby, Dominic.”
His face tightened.
“I know.”
“No.”
My voice remained calm.
“You know I had a baby.”
The distinction bothered him.
He stepped inside slightly.
“I made a mistake.”
The apology came quickly.
Too quickly.
I studied him.
“What mistake?”
He frowned.
“What do you mean?”
“The bus?”
His eyes moved away.
“The way things happened.”
“That’s not an answer.”
He rubbed his forehead.
“I was stressed.”
There it was.
The explanation that solved nothing.
“I was overwhelmed.”
I nodded slowly.
“You were overwhelmed.”
“Yes.”
“And I was recovering from surgery.”
His silence answered before he did.
“I know.”
I looked at him.
“Do you?”
For once, Dominic had no immediate response.
The flowers remained in his hand.
The apology remained unfinished.
And for the first time since I met him, he looked less like a man who had everything under control.
He looked like someone who had just realized the person he underestimated was no longer waiting for him to notice her.
He looked like someone who had just realized the person he underestimated was no longer waiting for him to notice her.
For several seconds, neither of us moved.
The flowers sat between us like an apology that had arrived after the damage was already done.
Finally, Dominic stepped back from the doorway.
“Can I come in?”
I considered saying no.
The answer was there.
Simple.
Clean.
But then I looked at the man standing in front of me and remembered something important.
Leaving someone did not mean pretending they no longer existed.
Especially when that person was the father of my child.
I opened the door wider.
“Ten minutes.”
His eyebrows lifted slightly.
“Ten minutes?”
“Yes.”
“Audrey, come on.”
“Eight minutes now.”
For a moment, the old Dominic appeared.
The impatient expression.
The disbelief that someone would set a boundary with him.
Then it disappeared.
He walked inside.
The apartment was quiet except for the soft sound of a white noise machine coming from the bedroom.
Dominic looked toward the room.
“He’s really sleeping?”
“Yes.”
He smiled faintly.
A real smile.
The kind that used to make me forget the things that hurt.
“He has my nose.”
I almost said no.
Because I did not think he did.
Leo’s nose was tiny and still changing every day.
But I stopped myself.
It was strange how grief worked.
You could be angry at someone and still notice the parts of them that lived in your child.
“I don’t know yet,” I said.
Dominic nodded.
He looked around the apartment.
The furniture.
The unopened boxes.
The small signs that someone else had helped create a temporary home.
“Your father arranged this?”
“Yes.”
His face changed.
Not sadness.
Not regret.
Calculation.
I saw it happen.
It was subtle.
A shift in his eyes.
A person realizing the situation was larger than he expected.
“You told him everything?”
“I told him what happened.”
Dominic placed the flowers on the counter.
“You made me look like a monster.”
The words were quiet.
That was what made them worse.
Not anger.
Not shouting.
The accusation hidden inside something calm.
I stared at him.
“I told him you gave me twelve dollars and left me outside a hospital.”
“You’re leaving out context.”
I almost laughed.
“Context?”
“Yes.”
He ran his hand through his hair.
“I had a stressful week.”
I waited.
He seemed to realize he needed more.
“My mother was visiting.”
“She visits often.”
“That’s not the point.”
“No?”
I folded my arms carefully, ignoring the soreness that still remained.
“Then what is the point?”
Dominic looked frustrated.
“The point is that I made a bad decision.”
“A bad decision is forgetting an appointment.”
I looked at him.
“A bad decision is ordering the wrong food.”
My voice lowered.
“You abandoned your wife and newborn because lunch was inconvenient to change.”
He looked away.
For once, he did not have an answer ready.
The silence lasted longer than I expected.
Then he said, “I didn’t think you would actually leave.”
That sentence hurt more than I expected.
Not because it surprised me.
Because it confirmed everything.
“You didn’t think I would leave because you thought I couldn’t.”
Dominic opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
The baby monitor crackled.
Both of us turned immediately.
The sound was so automatic that it almost made me cry.
For one second, we were just two parents reacting to their child.
Then reality returned.
Dominic went into the bedroom before I could stop him.
I followed.
Leo was awake, his tiny face scrunched in confusion.
Dominic carefully picked him up.
The sight was painful.
Because Dominic was good with him.
That was the part nobody talked about.
People wanted villains to be simple.
But real people were not.
Dominic could be careless with me and gentle with his son.
He could be selfish and still feel love.
He could fail and still want another chance.
That complexity was the reason leaving was difficult.
“He’s so small,” Dominic whispered.
I stood by the door.
“Yes.”
“I can’t believe he’s ours.”
I watched him hold Leo.
The man who had ignored my pain was now staring at our child like he was holding something fragile.
Maybe he was.
Maybe he finally understood what he had almost lost.
After a few minutes, Dominic handed Leo back.
“I want to fix this.”
I looked at him.
“How?”
He hesitated.
“I’ll do whatever you need.”
“That’s not an answer.”
May you like
His face tightened.
“You want me to say what?”
