Still Recovering After Giving Birth, I Heard My Husband Saying "I Love You" to the Night Nurse I Had Hired to Care for Our Baby Through the Baby Monitor novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: 3:12 A.M.
Alexis, seven weeks out of a cesarean, wakes to the baby monitor and hears her husband tell the night nurse he never stopped loving her; she drags herself to the nursery, accepts his smooth excuse, and decides to keep every clip.
The monitor chirped on my nightstand at 3:12 in the morning.
I had slept four hours straight, the longest stretch since I came home from the hospital.
I woke up angry that it had ended.
Then I heard Ward's voice coming out of the speaker.
"I love you," he said.
He said it low and slow, in the voice he used to save for me.
I sat up in the dark with my hand flat on my stitches.
"You know I never stopped," Ward said. "Not once. And she can't find out. Not ever."
A woman laughed, soft and close to the microphone.
"Then keep it from her," she said.
I knew that voice too.
It was Haley, the night nurse I had hired five weeks ago, the one I had interviewed myself because I wanted someone gentle with my daughter.
"Not in here," Ward whispered. "Not with the baby right there."
Our daughter was seven weeks old.
They were standing over her crib.
I reached for the covers to throw them off, and the cut across my belly pulled so hard that the room went white.
I made a sound I didn't mean to make.
Tears ran down my face before I had decided to cry.
On the screen of the monitor I could see the nursery in gray night vision, and two shapes standing very close together beside the crib.
I did not scream.
I picked up my phone, opened the recorder, and held it against the speaker.
Then I rolled onto my side, pushed myself up with my elbow, and stood.
It is nine steps from our bed to the nursery door.
I took them with one hand on the wall and the other pressed under my ribs, and I counted every one.
The light in the hallway was on.
Ward was standing just inside the door in his gray T-shirt, and Haley was at the crib with Stella already on her shoulder.
They were not touching.
They had both heard me coming.
"Lexi," Ward said, and he crossed the room fast. "You shouldn't be up. Here, lean on me, you've gone gray."
"I heard the monitor," I said.
"I know, it woke me too."
He put his arm around my back.
"Haley's mother died on Tuesday and she hasn't told anybody. I found her crying. I told her we love having her here. That's all it was."
It was the smoothest thing I had ever heard him say.
It did not match one word I had just listened to.
"I'm so sorry, Mrs. Wexler," Haley said. "I should have told you. I didn't want to make it about me."
She came toward me with the baby tucked against her neck.
With her free hand she pulled the rocking chair out of the corner.
"Sit, please. You're shaking. Let me tuck the blanket over your knees."
She was kind about it.
She was quick and gentle and she did not fuss.
Even then I thought that if I had been looking for a reason to trust her, she would have handed me three.
Stella stirred on her shoulder and smiled in her sleep.
It was the smile that put a dimple in her left cheek.
Nobody in my family has that dimple, and nobody in Ward's does either.
Our pediatrician had called it a lucky mystery.
Haley looked down and smiled back at her, a tired little smile, and handed her to me.
I took my daughter in both arms.
She smelled like milk and warm cotton, and she weighed eleven pounds, which is the most I am allowed to lift.
"Thank you," I said to Haley. "I'm sorry about your mother."
"Thank you for saying so," Haley said.
"Go back to bed, Lexi," Ward said. "I've got this."
I looked at my husband, at his soft hair and his easy face, and I understood that I had two choices.
I could scream in the nursery.
He would tell me I was exhausted and hormonal and not myself, and Haley would agree gently.
I would be the one who had to leave.
Or I could do what I do for a living and wait for the whole recording.
So I smiled, I said goodnight to both of them, and I let Ward walk me back to bed.
He was asleep in four minutes.
I lay there with the phone on my chest and opened the monitor app.
Every clip it saved after midnight was listed under today's date, and there were none.
Ward had set the app to delete them.
I edit other people's audio for a living, and I know that nothing is ever really deleted.
The app kept a folder called Recently Deleted, and it held thirty-one clips.
The oldest was five weeks old, from Haley's very first night.
My thumb was shaking when I pressed play.
"Does she suspect anything?" Haley asked.
"No," Ward said. "She thinks the agency picked you."
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend