Chapter 3: What Was on the Phone
The next contraction hit hard.
I gripped the bed rail and breathed through it, but my eyes never left my MIL's handbag.
The moment it passed, I looked straight at her.
"Give me the phone."
"Sweetheart—"
"Give me the phone.
Now."
She didn't move.
She sat with her hands folded in her lap, perfectly still, the way she used to sit across from me at family dinners when she'd decided I wasn't worth addressing directly.
"I'm in labor," I said.
"I am lying in this bed alone because my husband is three hours away.
And a nurse I have never seen in my life just walked past me — the patient — to hand something directly to you.
So you are going to tell me what is on that phone."
My MIL looked at the door.
Then back at me.
Something shifted in her expression — not guilt exactly, but the look of someone who had rehearsed this moment and found that the rehearsal wasn't enough.
"It's from Chris," she said finally.
"I know it's from Chris.
I saw his name.
What did he send?"
She opened her handbag slowly.
She set the phone on the edge of the bed, screen up, and slid it toward me without a word.
I picked it up.
It was a voice memo.
Forty-seven seconds long.
Sent to a number I didn't recognize — the nurse's number, I realized.
Forwarded to my MIL.
My hand was shaking as I pressed play.
Chris's voice filled the small room.
*"Mom, if she goes into labor before I get back, I need you to make sure she doesn't sign anything.
Nothing.
Not the birth plan, not the consent forms, not the naming paperwork.
Tell them there's a dispute.
Tell them whatever you need to.
I'll explain everything when I get there.
Just — keep her calm and don't let her sign."*
The memo ended.
The fetal monitor beeped steadily beside me.
I set the phone down on the blanket.
I didn't throw it.
I didn't cry.
I just sat there while the words rearranged themselves in my mind, trying to find a shape that made sense.
"A dispute," I said.
My MIL didn't answer.
"He used the word dispute." I looked at her.
"About our baby."
"There are things you don't know," she said quietly.
"Things Chris should have told you a long time ago.
He was going to.
He just—"
"He just what?
Ran out of time?
He had four years." My voice broke on the last word.
I pressed my lips together.
"What things?
What don't I know?"
She stood up and walked to the window.
Outside, the afternoon sky was flat and grey.
She stood with her back to me for a long moment.
"There's a woman," she said.
"Her name is Deanna."
The room went very quiet.
"She and Chris were together before you.
For almost two years." My MIL turned around.
Her face was composed, but her hands were clasped so tightly her knuckles had gone pale.
"She contacted him six months ago.
She told him — she told him the baby might not be his."
I stared at her.
"She said she was with someone else at the end of their relationship.
She wasn't sure.
Chris didn't know how to tell you.
He didn't want to upset you during the pregnancy, so he — he asked me to help him arrange a private test.
Without involving you directly."
"Without involving me." My voice came out flat.
"It's my baby."
"He panicked.
He made a bad decision.
He—"
Another contraction seized me, sharper than before.
I grabbed the rail and rode it out, eyes shut, jaw clenched.
When it passed I was breathing hard.
"Get out," I said.
"I can't leave you alone—"
"Get out of this room." I reached for the call button on the bed.
"Or I will press this and tell every nurse on this floor that you are interfering with my medical care."
My MIL picked up her handbag.
She walked to the door and stopped with her hand on the frame.
"He loves you," she said.
"He just didn't know how to—"
"Go."
She went.
I lay back against the pillow.
The monitor beeped.
May you like
Somewhere down the hall a door swung open and closed.
I pressed my hand flat against my stomach and felt the baby move — one slow, certain roll — and I started to cry without making any sound at all.
