Grant practically ran down the hospital hallways toward the exit, his breath hard, his throat and jaw tight from a night full of stress and absent of sleep. He’d been wanting to leave all night, to call Marie—the texts weren’t enough. He needed to hear the voice of someone sane, someone who was not caught up in this nightmare, but every time he tried to slip away to call her, Suzanne called for him to come back. “Hold my hand,” she said, fear stamped on her face. He couldn’t remember ever seeing her afraid before. Furious, excited, frustrated, desperate—yes, but never afraid. He was afraid too.

She’d gone into premature labor and the cerclage hadn’t held. She’d dilated too much to be stitched up again. She would be on bed rest for the next several months, on medication to keep the contractions under control. The doctors would do all they could.

We’re going to lose the baby, he thought, even as he thought, Don’t think that! What would happen if they lost the baby? The world would fly off its axis. It was spinning too fast as it was. He still could not really picture them with another child, but he couldn’t imagine losing it. Losing her. Adam and Suzanne, already so serious, would grow even more serious, their sad house even sadder.

He was a jerk to leave the hospital after Suzanne finally fell asleep and he knew it, a jerk to tell Allison he had to get to a deposition when there was no deposition to get to. He’d left Allison with coffee and the newspaper, peace offerings. Well, he was just taking a break. He’d be back as soon as he rested up; he’d return restored and steady, able to be the husband his wife needed him to be.

It was a relief to see sunlight beyond the lobby doors. He slid his parking ticket into the machine to pay and was rewarded with the message: “Thank you! Come again soon!”

The revolving doors took him from the clammy warmth of illness to the cool of morning, the sun rising with incongruous beauty over the parking lot. He took a deep breath, his first real lungful since Ted woke him to tell him Suzanne needed to go to the hospital late last night.

He’d felt a similar breathlessness the other night, when Suzanne told him she needed a cerclage and that Allison could drop her off before the procedure, but that he would have to pick her up.

“A what?” he’d said.

She’d known she had an incompetent cervix for weeks, but she hadn’t told him. Didn’t he have a right to know? As the baby’s father?