My Husband Left Me in Labor for My Best Friend and Her Baby novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Not on the List

Brent arrives with roses and the fox blanket and lies smoothly, and security walks him out in front of the whole floor. A bank alert shows he emptied her savings before she even went into surgery.

They brought Posy to me at eight that night.

She was wrapped in a hospital blanket with blue and pink stripes.

Her fist came out of it and opened and closed, each tiny finger perfect.

"Hi," I whispered. "I'm your mom. I'm sorry it took so long."

My father stood at the foot of the bed with his hand over his mouth.

I had not cried once since the photo.

I cried now, with my face against her head, because she smelled like nothing I had ever smelled.

At nine o'clock the door opened without a knock.

Brent came in carrying yellow roses and the fox blanket.

His mother walked in behind him in her good wool coat.

"There she is," Brent said, and smiled.

It was the same smile from the photo.

"Look at you, Cor. You did it."

"Stop there," I said.

He took another step.

"The nurse put you on a list," I said. "Do you want to read it?"

"Babe, come on. Don't do this tonight."

His mother set her purse on my tray table.

"Corrine, you're exhausted and you're hormonal," she said. "We came to be supportive."

"Where were you at four o'clock?"

"Helping a friend," Brent said. "Her husband's a no-show. Somebody had to be there. You'd have done the same."

"Would I?"

"Of course you would."

"She wrote that you're her husband, Brent."

He laughed, a little too loud.

"That's a joke between us. She's drugged up, and she has been since two in the afternoon. Nobody reads a Facebook post at face value."

"I read three years of them."

His smile stayed where it was, but his eyes went to my father.

Norm did not move.

"Show me your phone," I said.

"I'm not going to hand you my phone in a hospital room."

"Then we're done talking."

He sighed and put the roses on the chair, and he put the fox blanket on top of them.

It was damp along one edge.

I could smell milk on it from the bed.

It was somebody else's baby's milk.

"Don't set that down by my daughter," I said. "It's been in her room."

"Corrine," his mother said. "Summer is practically family. Your behavior is embarrassing us in front of the whole floor."

"There's a whole floor?"

I looked past her.

The door was open, and the hallway was full of people.

Two nurses, a man in a green robe with a clipboard, and a woman whose husband was pushing her slowly in a wheelchair.

All of them were looking in.

Brent turned and saw them too, and his voice dropped into the warm tone he used on customers.

"Folks, it's a family thing. We're fine."

"We are not fine," I said.

I said it loudly, and I felt it all the way across my stitches.

"My husband left me on a gurney during an emergency surgery and walked down the hall to another woman's delivery room."

Nobody in the hallway moved.

"I'd like him to leave now."

The charge nurse appeared in the doorway with a security guard behind her.

"Mr. Bozeman, I need you to come with me."

"I'm the father of that child!"

"You are, and you're on the restricted list at the patient's request."

The guard put a hand near his elbow but did not take hold of it.

His mother grabbed the roses and said, "This is ridiculous. He has rights."

"He has a lawyer's number, then," Norm said, very quietly.

It was the first thing my father had said in an hour.

Brent looked at the baby in my arms.

He looked at her for a long moment, and his mouth worked.

"What did you name her?" he said.

I stared at him.

"You don't know."

"You never told me."

"I told you in March, and you said you'd think about it."

"Cor..."

"Her name is Posy," I said. "Get out."

The guard walked him down the corridor.

His mother followed with the roses held out in front of her, and a nurse had to lean away from the thorns.

The woman in the wheelchair looked at me and gave me a small nod.

I put my head back on the pillow.

My hands were shaking, and I let them.

Norm closed the door and sat down next to me.

"I'll sleep in the chair," he said.

"You hate chairs."

"I hate a lot of things tonight."

My phone lit up on the tray table.

It was a banking alert, from the account where my grandmother's gift had sat for six years.

"Transfer completed: $58,400.00 to Lakeshore Title & Escrow, 6:12 a.m."

I read the time twice.

6:12 that morning.

I had been in the shower, and Brent had been in the kitchen making me eggs, because I was already having contractions.

He had kissed my head and told me everything would be perfect.

Then he had paid for something with every dollar I had.

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