Joanna’s fingers squeezed around the sheet.
I had spent seven months learning not to react to that name. Seven months of deliberate training in the specific discipline of not shaking.
“Why?”
“Because I need to know.”
The nurse moved uncomfortably. “Doctor, maybe this can wait…”
“No. Joanna’s voice was flat and secure. “If something is wrong with my baby, tell me now.”
Robert’s face changed. Any professional composure that was slipped away, and underneath was an old man carrying something too heavy to keep him hidden.
“Nothing happens to him,” he said. “But I think I can meet his family.”
For seven months, the family had only meant Joanna. His hands on his own stomach. His voice in an empty apartment. His body standing through double shifts in the cafeteria because there was no one else, because the person he had called when he found out had made a bag and said he needed air and promised he would call.
I never called.
“The father’s name,” Robert said, quietly.
“Logan,” she said.
He closed his eyes.
Logan Wright?
His heart crashed.
I had never given Logan the hospital’s last name. She had been careful about that, carefully many things, the specific way of someone who has learned that worrying too openly is a form of exposure.
“How do you know that name?”
He opened his eyes.
“Because he is my son.”
Words landed like a fallen stone in standing water.
Joanna looked at him. She was too exhausted to decide if she had heard wrong.
“Logan is my son. I didn’t know anything about pregnancy. I swear I didn’t.”
Something moved inside her, something buried under months of loneliness and unpaid bills and the specific pain of standing on the swollen feet during eight-hour shifts because there was no one to call.
“He left when I told him,” he said. “He said he needed air. He packed a bag. He promised he would call.” His voice broke, but he went on. “He never did.”
Robert looked down.
“I’m sorry.
“Where is it?” She demanded. “If it is your son, where is it?”
He looked at the baby. Then back to her.
