Chapter 6: The Ward

Miles drove me to Westbrook General because my hands would not stay on the wheel.

Neither of us said a word for ninety minutes.

At one point he reached across the console and I let him hold two of my fingers, and that was all.

My father was waiting in the corridor outside the maternity wing, still in his flannel shirt, with his work boots unlaced.

"They say the baby's fine," he said before I could ask. "Her heartbeat's strong. It was stress, and she hadn't eaten all day."

I put a hand over my mouth.

I was shaking.

I did not know if it was relief, or fury at myself for being relieved.

"Is she asking for me still?"

"She hasn't stopped."

Lydia lay in a narrow bed with a monitor strapped around her stomach and the blanket pulled up to her chin.

Her face was grey.

When she saw me, the tears started at once.

"You came."

"I'm here."

"I thought you'd never speak to me again."

"I'm not speaking to you right now," I said. "I'm checking your chart."

She laughed, a wet crumpled sound, and held out her hand.

I did not take it.

I sat in the plastic chair beside the bed instead, and she watched me do it with wet, hopeful eyes.

Then Miles came in behind me.

Lydia's face changed.

"I heard," she said, very small. "Your mother called me an hour ago. She said you ended it."

"Lydia," Miles said.

"It's all right. You don't have to say it again."

"I'm going to say it again."

He stood at the foot of her bed with his hands in his wet pockets.

"I'm not going to marry you. That's not because of what you are or what you did."

"I don't remember that night, and I can't build a marriage on it."

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