I was about to stand when Delilah’s voice drifted from the hallway.
“Harold, sweetheart,” she called weakly, “I feel dizzy. I need you.”
Then I heard it.
A baby crying.
Not just any cry, but the thin, frantic sound of an infant who needed to be held.
Nathaniel turned instantly, already moving toward the door. He didn’t spare me another glance.
My chest tightened until I thought I might pass out. He ran to her. To her baby.
And my own child was still missing.
My fingers dug into the mattress as my mind slipped back to the day I first met him—how he stood in the park glowing in the late summer sun, how I’d liked him first, how I’d told Delilah everything, believing she would be happy for me. She’d smiled back then, teased me, played the part of a loyal friend.
I never expected to later see them together—laughing, holding hands. I never confronted either of them. I convinced myself I was being mature. That love was complicated.
Then Delilah left town, and I stayed behind, building a life with the man she abandoned.
Now she was back. And she had his child.
I pressed my hand over my stomach, remembering how he used to lie beside me at night, whispering promises to the unborn baby.