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.

The screen read Hubby.

I pressed answer and didn't rush to speak.

On the other end came a clatter of cheering and clinking glasses.

Eric's voice carried a thread of impatience.

"Mila, how long are you going to keep this up?"

"You don't reply to my texts, you don't pick up my calls."

"It's Maria's birthday, the whole team's here. How would it look if I didn't show?"

He paused, his tone easing a little, sliding into that same old coaxing register.

"I know not answering your call last night was my fault."

"But you're a grown woman. Stop acting like some sulky little girl."

"Tomorrow I'll cancel the morning meeting and take you to your checkup myself. Happy now?"

I listened to him lay it all out like he had every right to, and it just felt absurd.

Take me to my checkup tomorrow.

He had no idea that the child he still thought needed a checkup was on the other side of one wall, in the resuscitation room, hanging between life and death.

I looked at the sealed doors of that room. My voice came out soft.

"Eric."

"What if something had really happened to me last night?"

The line went quiet for a beat.

The noise behind him seemed to recede a little. He must have stepped out of the room.

"What are you talking about?"

The reproach in his voice was unmistakable now.

"You're pregnant. Can you stop scaring me with things like that?"

"You missed one call. Do you have to curse yourself like this?"

"The baby's not due for another two months. We've got time to get everything ready."

"You being this sensitive and paranoid right now, honestly, it's exhausting."

A sudden tiredness washed over me.

I didn't even have the strength left to argue.

Every gap, every absence, he folded it all into my pregnancy nerves.

He used that self-assured reason of his to wall off my cry for help completely.

"Fine."

I answered calmly.

"I won't make a fuss anymore."

Eric seemed to breathe out in relief.

"That's more like it. Get some good rest at home."

"I'll bring chestnut cake back later."

The call ended.

I opened his contact and went into the settings.

I changed his label from Hubby to Eric Joyce.

Then I opened the hospital app, found the delivery ward's emergency contact page, and deleted his name from it completely.

My mother watched what I was doing, words caught on her lips.

"Mila, you're really not going to tell him?"

"He is the baby's father, after all."

I looked at the post Maria had just put up online.

She'd uploaded a photo of herself holding a cake, half of Eric's profile showing in the background.

The caption read: "Thank you, Eric. Wish granted."

I closed the app, opened my contacts, and dialed a number.

"Lawyer Chavez, it's me."

"I need you to draft a divorce agreement for me."

"As fast as you can."

"You're pregnant and you came to the hospital without telling me?"

Eric's voice rang out in the corridor of the clinic lobby.

I was bracing myself against the wall, on my way to the front window to settle these last two days of hospital fees.

The hospital gown hung loose on me, making me look pale and drained.

I stopped and turned toward the voice.

Eric stood there in a sharp suit, brow furrowed as he looked at me.

His right arm was held tight in Maria's grip.

She was balanced on one foot, most of her weight leaning into him.

She had on a white dress today, the hem falling just to her knees, a small patch of red and swollen skin showing at her ankle.

"Why's his wife at the hospital?"