Chapter 5
Then checked again.
Still high.
Her hands began trembling.
She called her obstetrician’s office.
A nurse listened carefully before saying, “Norah, I want you evaluated at labor and delivery triage now.”
“Do you think it’s preeclampsia?”
“We don’t know. That’s why you need to come in.”
Norah closed her eyes.
“Can I drive?”
“No.”
That answer frightened her more than anything else.
Her first instinct was to call Caleb.
Her brother answered immediately.
“Norah?”
“I need a ride to Mass General.”
The joking warmth disappeared from his voice.
“What happened?”
“My blood pressure is high.”
“I’m leaving now.”
“Caleb, you’re in Vermont.”
“I know.”
“That’s 2 hours away.”
“Then call Ethan.”
Norah said nothing.
Caleb understood.
“Okay. Call Diane.”
Norah looked down at her ring-free hand.
“I don’t want to scare her.”
“Norah. She’d rather be scared beside you than find out afterward.”
He was right.
Diane answered on the first ring.
25 minutes later, she arrived in a dark blue Lexus.
She did not ask questions until Norah was safely in the passenger seat.
At Massachusetts General Hospital, nurses placed monitors around Norah’s belly and took blood samples.
The baby’s heartbeat was steady.
That helped.
But Norah’s blood pressure remained concerning.
Diane sat beside the bed holding Norah’s coat and hospital bag.
“You should call Ethan,” Norah finally said.
Diane studied her.
“Do you want me to?”
“He’s the father. If something is medically wrong with Ben, he should know.”
Diane nodded.
Not because Ethan deserved comfort.
Because Norah still refused to use their child as punishment.
At that moment, Ethan was standing in a glass-walled conference room at Caldwell Mercer Wealth Management.
A stock-market ticker moved silently across 1 screen while a client presentation filled another.
His Montblanc pen rested beside his MacBook Pro.
His phone vibrated.
Mom.
He ignored it.
It rang again.
Ethan excused himself.
“What happened?”
Diane’s voice was controlled.
“Norah is at Mass General.”
Everything inside him stopped.
“Why?”
“Her blood pressure spiked. They’re monitoring her and the baby.”
“I’m coming.”
Ethan did not return to the meeting.
He grabbed his coat and left.
Madison happened to be waiting downstairs in the lobby.
They had planned dinner after work.
She smiled when she saw him.
Then noticed his face.
“What happened?”
“Norah’s in the hospital.”
Madison’s expression tightened.
“Is the baby coming?”
“I don’t know.”
She took a step toward him.
“Do you want me to come?”
Ethan hesitated.
“No.”
It was the first time he had openly chosen a boundary between Madison and his family.
He drove through Boston traffic with both hands locked around the steering wheel.
By the time he reached the hospital, Diane was standing outside Norah’s room.
“How is she?”
“Stable.”
“The baby?”
“Stable.”
Ethan exhaled.
Then asked the question before he could stop himself.
“Why didn’t she call me?”
Diane looked directly at him.
“You know why.”
He did.
Inside the room, Norah lay beneath a white blanket.
No makeup.
Hair pulled into a loose knot.
A fetal monitor traced Ben’s heartbeat beside her.
For the first time since she left, Ethan saw not the wife who had rejected him, but the woman carrying his child while navigating fear without him.
He stepped closer.
“Norah.”
She opened her eyes.
“You came.”
The words were not warm or cold.
Just surprised.
“Of course I came.”
Norah looked at the monitor.
“We’re stable. They don’t think I need to deliver tonight.”
Relief hit him so hard he had to sit down.
“I’m sorry.”
Norah looked back at him.
“For what part?”
Ethan had no answer small enough for the moment.
He reached toward her hand.
Then stopped.
“Can I?”
Norah shook her head gently.
Not angrily.
Ethan pulled his hand back.
“What do you need from me?”
She took a slow breath.
“Be Ben’s father.”
“I will.”
“But don’t come here because you suddenly want to be my husband.”
His face tightened.
“Norah—”
“I mean it.”
She looked directly at him.
“I am not asking you to choose me anymore.”
Ethan lowered his eyes.
There was no accusation in her voice.
That was what hurt most.
2 hours later, the doctor allowed Norah to leave with strict instructions.
Rest.
Monitor her blood pressure.
Return immediately for severe headache, vision changes, pain, or contractions.
Ethan offered to drive her.
Norah declined.
Diane helped her toward the elevator.
Ethan stood alone in the corridor.
His phone buzzed.
Madison.
Are we still having dinner?
He stared at the message for a long time.
For weeks, Madison had represented escape.
Tonight, the question suddenly sounded unbearably small.
He locked his phone without answering.
2 mornings after Norah left the hospital, a delivery van stopped outside the Concord cottage.
The driver carried 3 arrangements of white roses to the porch.
Norah stared at them through the window.
Lily, sitting at the kitchen table with a bowl of cereal, looked up.
“Dad.”
Norah did not have to answer.
A card rested between the flowers.
I should have protected you from all of this. I am sorry. Ethan.
Norah read it once.
Then placed it face down.
At noon, another package arrived.
This time, it was from Cartier.
Lily’s eyebrows rose.
“Okay. He’s panicking.”
Inside was a delicate gold bracelet.
Norah did not even try it on.
She closed the box.
“Can you put that by the door?”
“You’re sending it back?”
“Yes.”
Lily studied her.
“Aren’t you tempted?”
Norah looked at the bracelet.
1 year earlier, something like this would have made her feel loved.
Now it felt like an expensive way of avoiding an uncomfortable conversation.
“Jewelry is easy,” Norah said. “Changing is harder.”
That afternoon, Ethan called.
“I’d like to see you.”
Norah hesitated.
“If this is about Ben, yes.”
“It’s about us.”
“Then I don’t know.”
“Norah, please.”
The word please mattered because Ethan rarely used it when he was afraid.
She finally agreed to 20 minutes.
He arrived carrying a Starbucks cup in 1 hand and no flowers.
“Decaf latte. 1 pump vanilla.”
Her usual order.
Norah accepted it.
Not as forgiveness.
As coffee.
They sat across from each other in the small living room.
Ethan looked exhausted.
His suit was gone.
He wore a gray sweater and dark pants like the man Norah remembered from quiet Sunday mornings before work calls consumed everything.
For a dangerous second, she missed him.
Then she remembered why he was there.
“I ended things with Madison,” he said.
Norah’s eyes lifted.
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
“Why?”
“Because I realized what I was risking.”
Her expression hardened.
“You realized that after I went to the hospital.”
“I realized it before.”
“No, Ethan. You got scared before.”
He looked down.
“That’s fair.”
Norah had expected an argument.
The fact that he agreed almost unsettled her more.
“I want to fix this.”
“What does that mean?”
“Counseling. Transparency. Whatever you need.”
Norah folded her hands over her stomach.
“And if I say I don’t want to come back?”
His face tightened.
“I’m asking you not to decide yet.”
“I decided the night you told me you didn’t know if you loved her.”
“Norah—”
“You were willing to destroy our marriage for someone you weren’t even sure about.”
“I know.”
“No. I don’t think you do.”
He leaned forward.
“I’m trying.”
“You’re buying flowers.”
“That’s not fair.”
Norah looked toward the Cartier box by the door.
Ethan followed her eyes.
His face changed.
“You’re sending it back?”
“Yes.”
“It wasn’t meant to buy you.”
“Then why did you send it?”
He had no immediate answer.
Norah spoke quietly.
“You don’t get to turn regret into a purchase.”
Ethan leaned back.
“I didn’t know what else to do.”
“That’s the problem.”
He looked at her.
“For years, whenever something hurt, you fixed the visible part. A vacation. Jewelry. A dinner. Then we went back to normal.”
“I thought you liked those things.”
“I did.”
She paused.
“But I liked you more.”
That silenced him.
Norah’s eyes filled.
“I didn’t need Cartier. I needed you to come home when you said you would. I needed you to remember Lily’s counselor without me reminding you. I needed you to visit your father before he became another appointment on my calendar.”
Ethan’s throat tightened.
“I can do those things.”
“You should.”
Hope appeared in his face.
Then Norah continued.
“But not as payment for getting me back.”
The hope disappeared.
“Then what am I supposed to do?”
“Become the man you should have been even if I never return.”
Ethan stared at her.
For the first time, Norah saw that he understood the difference.
At least a little.
“Would you do counseling with me?” he asked.
“For co-parenting?”
His jaw tightened again.
“Only co-parenting?”
“For now.”
Ethan stood and walked toward the window.
Rain clung to the bare trees.
“I’m terrified that by the time I figure this out, you’ll be done with me.”
Norah’s voice softened.
“You’re still making this about what you might lose.”
He turned.
“What should it be about?”
“What you already did to the people who trusted you.”
His eyes dropped.
Lily came home from Rebecca’s house just before Ethan left.
May you like
She stopped when she saw him.
“Hey,” Ethan said.
