Chapter 4 - The Chart
Ethan held the squalling, perfect baby boy in his hands.
Tears were freely streaming down his face. He looked at the baby, then up at me, the math desperately running through his head. Nine months. The exact timeline of the divorce.
He cut the cord and handed my son to the nurse to be cleaned, then stumbled toward the head of my bed.
"Rebecca," he wept, reaching for my hand. "Is he... is he mine? Why didn't you tell me? My god, we have a son!"
"Don't touch me," I whispered, my voice exhausted but laced with steel.
The delivery room doors burst open again. Margaret rushed in, wearing a snow-covered coat, having clearly been in the doctor's lounge waiting for Ethan's shift to end.
"Ethan, they said there was an emergency—" Margaret froze, her eyes locking onto me, and then onto the crying infant in the warming bassinet.
I reached to the side table, picked up the manila folder I had packed in my hospital bag months ago, and threw it directly at Ethan’s chest.
"Read it," I commanded.
Ethan opened the folder. He saw Dr. Chen’s official letterhead. He saw the DNA fragmentation report his mother had hidden from him. He saw the exact biological proof that he had been the cause of our miscarriages all along.
He slowly turned his head to look at Margaret.
"You lied to me," Ethan whispered, his voice cracking with utter devastation. "You let me divorce my wife. You let me throw away my family because you wanted to protect my ego?"
"Ethan, I was protecting your future!" Margaret stammered, backing away from the pure hatred in her son's eyes. "She's broken!"
"I'm holding a healthy baby boy, Margaret," I said coldly from the bed. "I’m not broken. But your family is."
Ethan fell to his knees beside my bed, openly sobbing, begging for forgiveness, begging for a chance to be a father to the boy he had just delivered.
"You filed the paperwork, Ethan," I decreed, pulling my swaddled son into my arms for the first time. "You severed your legal rights to my body, my life, and my future. You gave up everything for a lie. You don't have a wife. You don't have a son."
I looked at the nurse, who was glaring at the two of them with utter disgust.
"Security," the nurse barked into her radio. "Remove these two from my patient's room immediately."
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Ethan screamed my name as hospital security dragged him and his mother out of the delivery suite. The heavy wooden doors clicked shut, cutting off the sound of his ruin.
I looked down at the beautiful, perfect boy in my arms, listening to the silence of the room. It was the most peaceful sound in the world.
