Chapter 3: What Brothers Don't Say
Caleb stared at the phone for a long moment.
Then he picked it up and walked out of the room without a word.
The nurse looked at me.
I looked at the door.
"I'll give you a moment," she said softly, and stepped toward the far corner of the room, busying herself with the warming station.
I held my daughter against my chest.
She was so small.
So warm.
She smelled like the very beginning of something, and I pressed my lips to the top of her head and tried to keep my breathing steady while my husband stood in the hallway talking to his brother at two in the morning.
Three minutes passed.
Maybe four.
Caleb came back in.
He didn't look at me right away.
He set the phone face-down on the bedside table and stood at the foot of the bed with his hands in his pockets.
"Caleb."
"I know."
"You don't get to just say 'I know.' You walked out of this room thirty seconds after holding your daughter for the first time.
You tell me what's happening.
Right now."
He pulled a chair to the side of the bed and sat down.
He looked exhausted in a way that had nothing to do with the long night.
"That birthmark," he said.
"It's a family mark.
It runs on my father's side.
My dad had it.
I have it — mine's on my ribs, you've seen it.
My brother Nate has it on his left shoulder.
Exact same shape, exact same place as hers."
I waited.
"It doesn't always pass down," he continued.
"My dad said his own father had it, and it skipped two generations before him.
It's just — it's rare.
And when I saw it on her, I just—" He stopped.
"You just what?"
He looked at his hands.
"I panicked.
I don't know why I panicked.
It doesn't mean anything.
It's genetics.
It could have come through me."
"Could have," I said.
He looked up.
"That's a strange way to say it," I said.
"Could have."
"That's not what I meant."
"Then what did you mean?
Because you handed our daughter to a nurse like she was something you needed to put down, and then you walked out to call your brother at two in the morning, and now you're sitting here telling me a birthmark that could have come through you made you panic." I felt my voice tighten.
"Help me understand that, Caleb."
He opened his mouth.
Closed it.
"When did you last see Nate?" I asked.
Something moved across his face.
Fast.
Gone before I could name it.
"Christmas," he said.
"Same as you."
"He stayed three days."
"Yes."
"And before that?"
Caleb was quiet for just a beat too long.
"I don't remember exactly.
We don't keep a calendar."
The nurse came back over gently, checking the baby's vitals, giving us the professional grace of pretending she hadn't heard any of it.
I let her work.
I watched Caleb watch his daughter, and I tried to figure out what I was looking at — a man who was frightened, or a man who was guilty, or a man who was both, and of what.
After the nurse moved away again, I said quietly, "Call him back."
"What?"
"Call Nate back.
Right now.
Put it on speaker."
Caleb's jaw tightened.
"It's two in the morning."
"He called you first."
The room was very still.
Caleb reached for the phone.
His hand rested on it without picking it up.
"He didn't call to congratulate us," he said.
"Did he."
It wasn't a question.
I felt something cold move through me.
"What did he say to you in that hallway?"
May you like
Caleb looked at me, and for the first time all night, he looked genuinely afraid.
"He said he needed to talk to me before you and I talked to each other."
