Eight months pregnant, in premature labor, I called my husband Eric Joyce over and over as they wheeled me toward the delivery room.

The line connected. Behind it, the noise of a karaoke lounge.

It was Maria Walker, the new girl at his company, who answered.

"Hey, hon, Eric's had a few too many. I've got him, don't worry."

Before I could get a word out, I heard Eric's voice from somewhere beside her, clearly not realizing the call had already gone through.

"Send my wife a message. Tell her the project's running late tonight. Don't let her wait up."

Maria covered the phone and laughed. "Eric, you never even saved my number. How am I supposed to send anything for you?"

"Use my phone. You know the passcode."

The delivery room lights came on.

The nurse pressed me to sign. Biting my lip, I wrote my mother's name in the blank marked next of kin on the consent form.

The night my son was born, Eric texted: Project's finally wrapped up. I'll come back and be with you tomorrow.

I stared at that line for a long time.

At four in the morning, I texted him back.

"Eric. Don't come."

...

"Stop watching that phone. If he'd really wanted to come last night, he'd already be here."

My mother sat at the edge of the hospital bed, her eyes rubbed raw from the long night.

She held a cup of warm water, dabbing a cotton swab over my cracked lips, little by little.

The anesthesia had only just worn off. The incision across my belly throbbed in waves.

I looked up at the fluorescent light on the ceiling, my vision still soft and blurred.

A nurse wheeled in a dressing cart and glanced at the nameplate above my bed.

"You're awake. How are you feeling?"

I opened my mouth a little.

"Where's my baby?"

The nurse wrapped the cuff around my arm to take my blood pressure, lowering her voice.

"The baby came early. The weight was too low, so he went straight to the neonatal ICU after delivery."

"He's still in the incubator under observation. In your condition, you can't go hold him just yet."

My mother turned her back and wiped at a tear before I could see.

When she turned around, her voice was still shaking.

"You hemorrhaged last night. When the doctor handed me the critical-condition notice, my hand wouldn't even hold steady enough to sign."

"I called him a dozen times. Every single one went dead."

I didn't answer. I just rolled my eyes slowly toward the phone by my pillow.

The screen was lit. A few unread messages waited in the chat.

All of them from Eric.

"Still mad? Last night really was a work thing."

"The client added a last-minute dinner. I couldn't say no, the whole team is counting on this account."

"Maria said you called. Don't read into it, she's just a kid fresh out of school, she saw I'd had too much and answered for me to be nice."

"You're pregnant. Stop being so suspicious all the time. It's bad for the baby."

I fixed on that last line, and my chest went tight.

Yesterday afternoon, at the checkup, the doctor said the baby's heartbeat was abnormal and recommended I be admitted at once.

I called him. He said he was in a meeting.

That evening the pain doubled me over, and my water broke on the living room floor.

My mother held me up while we waited for the ambulance, and with shaking hands I dialed his number.

It was Maria who picked up.

Her light, breezy voice mixed in with the music from the lounge.

And then his easy, matter-of-fact line. Use my phone. You know the passcode.

The nurse came to the bedside with a few documents.

"Mila Fox, this is the baby's admission form and the visitor wristband. Family needs to check the information and sign."

My mother reached for them, but the nurse pointed at one line.

"Here, the father's information field is blank. No contact number either."

"If anything sudden happens with the baby later, we need to reach both parents' families right away."

My mother froze and turned to look at me.

I braced myself against the edge of the bed and tried to push myself up a little.

The pull at the incision made me suck in a sharp breath.

"You don't need to write him in."

I took the pen and signed my own name in my mother's line.

"Leave the father's field blank. For the emergency contact, just put my mother's number."

The nurse hesitated, watching me.

"But it's hospital policy. The visitor list for the NICU has to be immediate family. If the father isn't registered, he won't be allowed in to see the baby later."

"He doesn't need to go in."

I handed the pen back to her. My voice came out so calm it surprised even me.

"He won't be coming."

The nurse didn't press. She gathered up the form and left.

My phone buzzed again.

A voice message from Eric popped up.

"I've got a meeting with an investor this morning, then I'm heading back to the office in the afternoon."

"You be good and stay home. Tonight I'll bring back that chestnut cake you love from the place on the South Side."

"Stop sulking. Once the baby's born, you'll have plenty to be tired about."

He didn't even know I wasn't home.

He had no idea that the child he still thought was "two months from being born" was lying in an incubator right now, wired with tubes.

I didn't reply. I just pressed the screen dark.

My mother fastened the visitor band around my wrist.

It read: Mila Fox's son.

Early in the pregnancy, the first time Eric heard the heartbeat, his eyes had gone red.

He'd held my hand and pressed it to his cheek.

He'd said, Mila, from now on, you and the baby are the most important people by my side.

He'd even bought a thick new-father's handbook and written across the cover, solemn as anything: Countdown to Baby's Arrival.

But now the countdown had ended early.

And the man who'd sworn he would be the first to hold our child had handed his private passwords and his time to another woman.

I closed my eyes. There were no tears at the corners.

I only had one thing to say to the nurse.

"Please mark my room number as private. Don't tell anyone."

"The baby can't be held yet. Mom can only look for five minutes."

The nurse wheeled me up to the glass window of the NICU and stopped the chair there.

The smell of disinfectant hung heavy in the hallway, and the cold air slipped through the loose hospital gown and into my bones.

I gripped the armrests with both hands and forced myself upright to see inside.

In the incubator, that tiny body lay curled in on itself.

His skin was a raw, purplish red, a thin IV line taped into his arm.

So small that even breathing seemed to cost him everything.

A clear identification band was looped around his wrist.

Written on it in black marker: Mila Fox's son.

The father's field was still blank.

I reached out through the glass, fingertips against the cold surface, as if I could feel the warmth of him through it.

The phone in my pocket buzzed.

I drew my hand back and took it out.

A voice message, from Maria.

"Hey, Eric's got a terrible headache today, he fell asleep at the office."

"I made him a hangover smoothie. Don't be hard on him, the client last night was really impossible."

"He's just trying to earn formula money for your little one, you know."

In the background came Eric's voice, low and a little hoarse, mumbling.

"Maria, pour me a glass of water."

"Sure thing, Eric, coming right up."

The message cut off there.

I stared at those dozen-odd seconds of green bar on the screen, and my stomach turned.

I had just clawed my way back from the edge of dying, and I needed my mother's help just to turn over.

My baby lay in an incubator with tubes down his throat, too weak even to cry.

And my husband was asleep somewhere, tucked in under another woman's care.

He'd even let her use that half-wife tone to report his whereabouts to me, as if it were nothing.

A nurse came over and handed me a slip of paper.

"Mila, this is your baby's monitoring bill for the last two days."

"Preemie care in the incubator runs high. You'll need to go to the billing office and top up the deposit first."

I nodded and took the slip.

The number on it was not small.

I opened my banking app and transferred the money from my card to the hospital account, the motions automatic by now.

Back during the checkups, Eric had always rushed to pay.

He'd sat beside me through the 4D ultrasound, eyes fixed on the blurry little shape on the screen, unable to look away.

"Look at his little hands, how strong they are."

"Once he's born, I'm buying him the best crib. Only the best of everything."

Those words were still fresh in my ears.

But now, when there was actual responsibility to carry, he was nowhere to be found.

I'd barely finished paying when another message from Eric popped up.

"Babe, I'm awake."

"Still a little dizzy. Might be home late tonight."

"Eat dinner without me, don't wait up."

He was still calling me babe.

The word looked like a joke now.

He thought I was still home. He thought I was just sulking because he'd missed my call.

He had no idea I'd already stopped waiting for him.

I set the phone to silent and put it back in my pocket.

"Nurse, could you take me back, please."

The wheelchair had only just turned when an alarm started shrieking from the monitoring room.

A doctor in scrubs walked out fast, a document in hand.

"Is Mila Fox's family here?"

My mother hurried to him.

"Yes, I'm her mother."

The doctor's face was grave.

"The baby just stopped breathing and his heart rate dropped. We're carrying out emergency intervention."

"This is the emergency treatment consent form. Family needs to sign it immediately."

My mother went white with fear, her hands shaking too hard to hold the pen.

I forced myself to lean out of the wheelchair and snatched the pen.

"I'll sign."

The nib dragged across the paper with a harsh scratch.

I wrote my name, every stroke draining the last of my strength.

The moment I handed the form back to the doctor.

The screen lit up. Eric had sent a photo.

A cake with a candle in it.

The caption read: "It's Maria's birthday tonight, team dinner, home later."

"Apnea in preemies is common, but we can never take it lightly."

The doctor held my signed form, his tone serious.

"The baby's lungs aren't fully developed. The next twenty-four hours are critical."

"The family should be prepared. He may need to be resuscitated again at any time."

I sank back against the wheelchair, nails digging deep into my palm.

"I understand. Please, do everything you can."

The red light above the emergency room door came on, too harsh to look at straight.

The corridor was so quiet I could hear nothing but the hum of the exhaust fan.

My mother sat on the row of chairs beside me, hands pressed together, murmuring something under her breath without pause.

I looked down at my phone screen.

That photo of the cake from Eric was still sitting at the bottom of the thread.

A dainty fondant cake, "Happy Birthday Maria" written across the top.

I didn't reply.

A few minutes later, his call came through.