CHAPTER 4 — THE VOICEMAIL

I slept forty minutes.

Maybe less.

When I woke, sunlight filtered through the blinds.

Theo was in the bassinet beside me.

Mom sat near the window.

“Where’s Reid?”

“In the hall.”

“With the girl?”

Mom hesitated.

“Yes.”

I reached for my phone.

Two unknown missed calls.

One voicemail.

I almost deleted it.

Then I noticed the timestamp.

2:03 a.m.

Theo had been born at 2:46.

My thumb hovered over the screen.

Then I pressed play.

Static.

Hospital noise.

Then Reid’s voice.

“Maren?”

He sounded breathless.

“It’s me. My phone died. I’m calling from the nurse’s station.”

My chest tightened.

“I’m trying to get back. I swear I’m trying.”

A pause.

“There’s a little girl here.”

His voice cracked.

“They still don’t know if her mother is going to wake up.”

I closed my eyes.

“She’s Miles’s daughter.”

Mom looked at me.

I raised one finger.

“She’s four. Her name is June.”

More noise behind him.

Then a child crying.

Reid lowered his voice.

“I know you need me.”

My vision blurred.

“I know Theo needs me.”

He stopped.

“I just don’t know how to abandon her either.”

The message ended.

I played it again.

Then a third time.

It erased nothing.

But something in the story shifted.

He had tried.

Before Theo was born.

Before he knew he would miss it.

He had tried to tell me.

I set down the phone.

Mom waited.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel.”

“You don’t have to know today.”

I looked at Theo.

“He said he’d make the same choice again.”

Mom was quiet briefly.

“Do you think he meant he would choose her over you?”

“Yes.”

“Or do you think he meant he still couldn’t leave a four-year-old alone?”

I looked at her.

“Whose side are you on?”

“Yours.”

“Doesn’t sound like it.”

“I can be on your side without pretending he’s a monster.”

That irritated me because it sounded annoyingly reasonable.

A soft knock came at the door.

Reid stepped in.

Without June.

“She’s with a child-life specialist.”

I didn’t answer.

“Tessa is out of surgery.”

That mattered.

“How is she?”

“Stable. But they’re keeping her.”

“What happened?”

“Internal bleeding from a ruptured ovarian cyst.”

I exhaled.

“Is she going to be okay?”

“They think so.”

“What happens to June?”

“We don’t know yet.”

His face told me there was more.

“What?”

“Tessa may be here several days.”

“And?”

“Her sister is in Oregon. She’s trying to get a flight.”

I stared.

Reid didn’t say what he wanted.

For once, he waited.

“Don’t,” I said.

His brow furrowed.

“Don’t ask me to bring June home today.”

“I wasn’t going to.”

“You were thinking it.”

“Yes.”

“Reid, I gave birth six hours ago.”

“I know.”

“Our marriage is barely standing.”

“I know.”

“I don’t know that child.”

“I know.”

“Stop saying that.”

“Sorry.”

He looked exhausted.

For the first time, I noticed he hadn’t changed clothes.

Hadn’t showered.

Had probably not eaten.

Good, a petty part of me thought.

Then I hated myself again.

“What does the social worker want?”

“They asked whether I’m willing to be a temporary caregiver until Tessa’s sister arrives.”

“And are you?”

“Yes.”

There it was.

The answer that kept coming.

Yes.

I looked away.

“Then do it.”

Reid looked surprised.

“But not in our house.”

His face tightened.

“My parents can take her.”

“Then call them.”

He nodded.

I expected an argument.

He didn’t give one.

At the door, he stopped.

“Maren.”

“What?”

“I wasn’t trying to protect another life from you.”

“Then what were you doing?”

He looked at me for a long moment.

“Protecting myself from a conversation I was afraid to have.”

That was the first answer that felt completely honest.

I nodded once.

“At least now we agree on something.”