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 12 of 24

Chapter 12: You Don't Get Both

We sat at Hattie's kitchen table at half past one in the morning, the four of us and the dog.

Hattie stood at the counter with her arms crossed.

Haley sat at the far end with her hands around a mug of tea she had not touched.

Ward sat across from me.

Stella slept in the portable crib by the radiator, and I could see her from where I sat.

"Start at the beginning," I said. "Don't leave anything out. If you do, I'll know, because I've got thirty-one clips."

Ward rubbed both hands over his face.

"When the doctors told you the chemo had taken your eggs, you stopped eating for two weeks."

"I remember."

"You said you didn't want a baby that came out of a catalog."

"I never said that."

"You said it to your sister," Ward said. "You said you couldn't stand picking a stranger's face off a form. I was standing in the hall."

Hattie shifted at the counter, and I knew he was right.

"So I thought about Haley."

I looked at her.

She looked at the table.

"We were together for two years in college," Ward said. "My mother broke it up. You know why."

"I don't."

"She was a foster kid. She had no family. Mother said she'd drag me down." His jaw tightened. "She paid her to go, and Haley went, and I let her. I was twenty-five and I let my mother decide for me."

"And nine years later," I said, "you decided for me."

He flinched.

"I found out Haley was working at Chesapeake. I went to see her. I told her you couldn't have a baby, and she said she'd do it. She wanted to."

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