Chương 3
“And later?”
Maya looked at Ethan.
Vanessa noticed.
“Oh, don’t look at him. I’m asking you.”
“No.”
Vanessa nodded slowly.
The nod contained more anger than any scream.
“Thank you.”
Maya blinked.
“For what?”
“For not insulting me twice.”
Ethan looked toward the window.
Below them, cars entered and exited the parking garage.
A rideshare driver leaned against a silver sedan while staring at his phone. A man in a baseball cap crossed the drop-off lane holding pink balloons in one hand and a drink carrier in the other.
People kept arriving at the hospital unaware that room 416 had become the center of four private worlds.
Vanessa stood.
“I’m going home.”
Ethan turned.
“We need to talk.”
“We needed to talk about eleven months ago.”
“Vanessa.”
“No.”
The newborn made another thin sound.
Vanessa looked at him for the first time.
Her face softened despite herself.
Then she looked away quickly.
“I’m not doing this next to a baby.”
She walked to the door.
Ethan did not follow immediately.
That hurt her too. Maya saw it happen in the small pause before Vanessa opened the door.
Vanessa glanced back.
“You should stay.”
It was impossible to tell whether the sentence was generous or cruel.
Maybe Vanessa did not know either.
Then she left.
The door clicked shut.
Ethan stood with both hands at his sides.
Maya studied the tattoos across his knuckles. She had once traced those same dark lines while he slept in her apartment, telling herself a sleeping married man could somehow belong nowhere.
Laura cleared her throat.
“I can come back.”
“No,” Maya said.
She wanted the paperwork finished.
She wanted one thing in the world to move from incomplete to complete.
Laura checked Maya’s identification, then Ethan’s. She explained the hospital’s process without theatrics. Ethan listened. Maya interrupted twice because fatigue made simple sentences difficult to hold in her head. Laura repeated herself without irritation.
When they reached the place where Maya had to confirm the father information, she stopped.
Ethan waited.
“What?” he asked.
Maya’s throat felt dry.
“If I put you down, this becomes real.”
Ethan looked at the child.
“He’s already real.”
“I know that.”
“You’ve known it for months.”
“I know that too.”
“Then what are we talking about?”
Laura made a quiet sound that meant she was still in the room.
Ethan rubbed a hand over his mouth.
“Sorry.”
Maya looked at the report.
“You think the hard part is proving he’s yours.”
“No.”
“You came in here like it was.”
“I came in here angry.”
“You slammed an envelope on a clipboard while I was holding a newborn.”
“I know.”
“You scared me.”
His face shifted.
That reached him differently than the accusation of betrayal.
“I wasn’t trying to scare you.”
“You’re six-three and angry in a charcoal suit with tattoos on your neck. You don’t have to try very hard.”
Laura looked down at her paperwork to hide the corner of her mouth.
Ethan noticed.
“I’m aware of what I look like.”
“No, you’re aware that people notice you. That isn’t the same thing.”
He drew in a breath.
The baby stirred again.
Ethan lowered his voice.
“What do you want me to do?”
The question was the first one he had asked since arriving that did not contain an accusation.
Maya did not know how to answer.
“I want him safe.”
“From me?”
“From all of this.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I have right now.”
Laura put the pen down.
“Then don’t solve the next eighteen years today.”
Maya looked at her.
Laura shrugged.
“You’d be amazed how often people try.”
Ethan sat in the second visitor chair.
For the first time he looked tired.
Not angry.
Tired.
His white shirt was open at the collar. The charcoal jacket that usually made him look assembled now showed a crease near the pocket. He had probably been wearing it since early morning.
“How long have you been here?” Maya asked.
“In the hospital?”
“Yes.”
“Forty minutes.”
“No. I mean awake.”
He checked his watch, then seemed embarrassed by the gesture.
“Yesterday.”
“Of course.”
“What does that mean?”
“You don’t sleep when you’re mad.”
He looked at her.
“You remember that?”
“Unfortunately.”
Laura pretended with great professionalism to be fascinated by a line of tiny print.
Maya signed her portion of the worksheet.
Ethan read everything before he signed.
When he finally wrote ETHAN MICHAEL COLE on the father-information line, there was no triumphant gesture. No final speech. He simply pressed too hard with the pen, paused midway through the last name, then finished.
The newborn opened his eyes.
They were the unfocused dark gray-blue of a baby barely hours old.
Ethan stared at him.
Maya adjusted the blanket.
“Do you want to hold him?”
The question surprised both of them.
Ethan’s hands remained on his knees.
“I don’t know.”
“That might be the first sensible thing you’ve said today.”
He gave her a look.
She almost smiled.
Then her eyes filled.
Not dramatically. The tears simply arrived from exhaustion, pain, hormones, fear, and the sight of Ethan sitting three feet from a child whose existence had just dismantled his certainty about every adult in the room.
Ethan stood carefully.
Maya shifted the baby.
“Support his head.”
“I know.”
“You absolutely do not.”
“I’ve held babies.”
“Whose?”
He paused.
“My sister’s.”
“When?”
“Fifteen years ago.”
“That doesn’t count.”
“It was still a baby.”
Laura stepped closer.
“Mom wins this one.”
Maya transferred the newborn slowly.
Ethan’s body changed the second the baby touched him.
His shoulders rose.
His elbows locked.
“Relax.”
“I am relaxed.”
“You look like you’re transporting explosives.”
Laura turned away, coughing once into her fist.
The baby wrinkled his face.
Ethan looked alarmed.
“He’s fine,” Maya said.
“He looks upset.”
“He was born this morning. His standards are low.”
That time she did laugh, and the laugh pulled painfully at her abdomen.
She winced.
Ethan saw it.
May you like
“What happened?”
“I gave birth.”
