He stretched, smiled at me, and asked if I had slept well.
“Not really.”
He leaned down and touched my stomach.
“Last night being pregnant.”
The baby moved beneath his hand.
For one terrible second, I wondered if he felt anything at all.
Love.
Guilt.
Fear.
Anything.
Instead, he kissed my cheek.
“You’re going to do great.”
I wanted to ask:
Do great at what? Giving birth or dying?
Instead, I said, “I hope so.”
He showered.
Shaved.
Put on charcoal trousers and a blue button-down.
He looked polished enough for a board meeting.
Then, while fixing his cuff, he mentioned my mother.
“She would’ve been excited today.”
My mother had died four years earlier.
She had never fully trusted Grant.
Once, after our engagement, she told me:
“Charm is easy when everyone is saying yes. Watch who a man becomes when someone tells him no.”
I had dismissed it.
Grant had been wonderful to me.
Patient.
Funny.
Attentive.
What I didn’t understand then was that I had rarely denied him anything he truly wanted.
At 6:12, someone knocked.
A nurse entered first.
Behind her came a woman wearing a hospital executive badge.
And behind that woman stood a man in an ordinary gray suit.
I knew immediately.
The administrator introduced herself as Dana Keller.
Then the man looked at Grant.
“Mr. Whitaker?”
Grant’s expression tightened.
“Yes?”
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