He Left Me Pregnant at Her Funeral, Now His Son Needs Him novel · Chapter 2 of 32

Chapter 2: Return to Sender

Geneva is fired, mails Vaughn the ultrasound, and gets it back stamped REFUSED, so she decides he will never know.

On Monday morning, my badge stopped opening the door to the pediatric ward.

I tried it three times.

Then the nurse manager came out and told me to follow her to the fourth floor.

Two men from human resources sat on one side of a long table.

On the other side sat Ansley's mother, in the black she had not taken off since the funeral.

She had sat on this hospital's board for eleven years.

I had not known that until now.

"The board has voted to end your employment," one of the men said. "Effective today."

"On what grounds?"

"Conduct unbecoming."

"What conduct?"

Nobody answered, and Ansley's mother looked at the table.

I took off my badge and put it on the wood in front of her.

"Six years on that ward," I said.

"I never lost a patient to carelessness, and I never once left a shift early."

"Everyone in this room knows that."

"You will not work in this city again," she said, very quietly.

"I'll work where I like."

I picked up my bag and walked out through the hallway where the other nurses stood pretending to chart.

One of them squeezed my hand as I passed.

She did not say anything.

I did not cry until the stairwell.

I let it come for exactly as long as it took to be angry instead.

Then I called Vaughn.

It went to voicemail, so I called again.

On the third try someone picked up.

"Hello?" It was a woman, and her voice was soft and tired.

"Kendra?"

"Geneva." She said it with such relief that my throat tightened.

"Oh, I'm so glad it's you. I was going to call. How are you holding up?"

"Why do you have Vaughn's phone?"

"I'm staying at his place for a few days. Someone has to make him eat."

She laughed a little, wetly.

"He hasn't left the couch since Friday. He's not angry at you, you know. He's just broken."

"I need to talk to him."

"He's asleep, finally. The doctor gave him something."

"It's important."

"I know. I'll tell him you called, I promise. Is there a message?"

I closed my eyes.

I thought of telling her.

I thought of how it would sound on the phone to her, two days after she buried her sister.

"Tell him to call me," I said.

"Of course," she said. "Geneva, be gentle with yourself. Please."

After I hung up I stood in the stairwell for a long time with the phone in both hands.

He did not call.

Not that night, not the next day, not the day after that.

On Thursday I went to a clinic and sat in a plastic chair.

A technician I did not know ran a wand across my stomach.

On the monitor there was a small white shape, and in the middle of it a flicker.

"That's your heartbeat," the technician said. "Strong. Do you want a copy?"

I held the printout in both hands until it went soft.

That night I sat at my kitchen table and wrote him a letter by hand.

A phone could be turned off, and an email could be blocked.

I wrote that I was sorry about Ansley.

I wrote that I would not ask him for anything.

I wrote that I was pregnant and that it was his.

I wrote that he had a right to know before he decided anything else.

I put the ultrasound in with it.

I wrote his home address on the envelope, and my own return address in the corner.

I walked to the post office in the rain and paid for tracking.

Nine days later the envelope came back.

It lay in my mailbox on a Saturday, damp at one corner.

It was sealed exactly as I had left it.

Across the front, in thick block capitals, someone had written REFUSED, and under that, RETURN TO SENDER.

I turned it over.

The flap had not been touched.

He had not opened it.

He had looked at my handwriting and the name on the corner.

He had decided he did not want a single word I had to say.

I sat down on the floor of the hallway with my back against the door.

For a while I only held the envelope.

My aunt called that evening.

"You sound awful," she said.

"Come up to the lake house. Grandma left it to you for a reason. You can't stay in that city."

"I have to tell him."

"Did you try?"

"I called. I wrote."

"Then you tried, Geneva."

I looked at the envelope on the counter.

I had one more thing I could do.

I could drive to his office and stand in the lobby and say it to his face.

I could watch him tell the guards to remove me.

I could lose another piece of myself on that marble floor.

I put my hand on my stomach.

The person inside me did not know any of this yet.

They deserved a mother who was not already broken.

That night I packed two suitcases and the box of Grandma's quilts.

I called the landlord and gave notice.

I wrote one line on a sticky note and put it on my refrigerator.

I wanted to see it every time I went for water.

*He chose. Let him live with it.*

In the morning I locked the door and drove north.

Vaughn Alden had refused his own child before the child had a name.

I would make sure he never got the chance to take it back.

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