Chapter 4: Before She Finds Out
I didn't sleep that night.
Caleb sat in the chair beside my bed until the sky outside the window went from black to gray to pale winter white.
He held my hand for a while.
Then he didn't.
Then he did again.
Neither of us spoke much.
The baby slept in the bassinet between us, her tiny chest rising and falling, that small crescent mark hidden now beneath the blanket.
At six in the morning, a different nurse came in to check my vitals and bring me breakfast I didn't touch.
Caleb stood, stretched, and said he was going to get coffee from the machine down the hall.
He was gone for twenty-two minutes.
I know because I watched the clock.
When he came back, he had two cups.
He set mine on the tray table and sat back down, and I let him take one sip before I said, "You called him again."
Caleb looked at the cup in his hands.
"Yes."
"What did he say?"
"He wants to come to the hospital."
"No."
"I know."
"Caleb, whatever is happening, I don't want Nate in this room until I understand what it is.
Do you hear me?"
"I told him not to come.
He's not coming." He finally looked at me.
"But he wants to explain in person.
He says it's not what it looks like."
"What does it look like?"
Caleb set the coffee down on the windowsill.
He turned to face me fully, and I could see how much he didn't want to say the next thing.
"Last spring," he began.
"March, April — that stretch when I was traveling every week for the Henderson project.
You remember."
I remembered.
Twelve weeks of him leaving Monday morning and coming back Thursday night.
I'd been in the middle of the second trimester, cautiously hopeful, trying not to count anything before it was safe to count.
"You were lonely," he said.
"You told me that."
"I was.
I also told you I understood."
"I know you did." He paused.
"Nate was checking on you.
I asked him to.
I was worried about you being alone so much."
I felt the shape of what was coming before the words arrived.
"He came over," Caleb said.
"A few times.
To have dinner, keep you company.
You knew about some of those visits."
"I knew about two of them."
"There were more."
The room felt very quiet.
"How many more," I said.
It wasn't a question either.
"He says six.
Over about ten weeks."
"Six." I looked at the bassinet.
At the small shape sleeping inside it.
"And you didn't know."
"No." His voice was low and certain.
"I did not know."
"But he told you last night that—"
"He told me that something happened.
That it was a mistake.
That he's been carrying it since before you even told us you were pregnant, and when I called him just now, he said—" Caleb stopped.
His throat worked.
"He said he thinks the timing is possible."
I stared at him.
"He said he thinks the timing is possible," I repeated.
"Yes."
I looked down at my daughter.
She had Caleb's nose.
I had been so sure of that.
I had looked at her in the first minutes of her life and thought, she has his nose, and I had felt such a rush of love and relief and completion.
"Get out," I said.
"Nora—"
"I need you to leave this room.
Right now.
Take your coffee and go."
"I'm not leaving you alone—"
"Caleb." My voice didn't shake.
I was surprised by that.
"I am holding myself together by a thread and if you say one more word to me right now, I will lose it in front of a nurse and a newborn baby.
Please.
Go."
He stood.
He picked up his cup.
At the door he turned back.
"I don't believe it," he said.
"For what it's worth.
I don't believe it's true."
I didn't answer him.
He left.
I looked at my daughter for a long time.
Then I picked up my own phone and called the one person I should have called hours ago.
My sister answered on the second ring.
May you like
"Diane," I said.
"I need you to come."
