"Send him in."
She placed Lily back in the bassinet to give me a rest and stepped out.
A moment later, the door swung open, and there was Ethan.
I was so happy!
My husband's hair was a mess, his shirt wrinkled from a night in a waiting room chair. He was holding the biggest bouquet of white roses I had ever seen! But it was his face I couldn't stop looking at. He looked at me as if I'd just handed him the world!
"This is the happiest day of my life," he said, a wide smile on his face as he crossed the room in three long strides.
He kissed my forehead, then turned to the bassinet, still smiling wide enough to break my heart.
My husband's hair was a mess.
Then he bent over our daughter with that wide smile still on his face, and something in him just stopped.
I watched his eyes move slowly across Lily's tiny face, lingering on a spot just behind her ear. The bouquet in his hand tilted. The flowers slid free and scattered across the linoleum.
"Ethan?" I whispered. "What's wrong?"
My husband looked up at me, and it was as if he were seeing a stranger sitting in my bed.
The bouquet in his hand tilted.
"Why didn't you tell me before?"
My stomach clenched so hard that I felt sick. I pulled the blanket a little closer to my chest.
"Tell you what? Ethan, you're scaring me."
"Look at this child." His voice cracked mid-sentence as he walked over and placed her in my arms. "Don't you see it? Don't you understand what you've done?"
I couldn't breathe.
"You're scaring me."
The room felt narrow, and every ugly thought I'd ever pushed away came rushing in at once.
Did he think Lily wasn't his? Did he see something wrong with her, some sign the doctors had missed?
Our baby's skin was warm and pink, her breathing soft and steady. She was completely normal.
"She's your daughter!" I choked out. My arms tightened around her so instinctively that she squirmed and made a soft, complaining sound. "Ethan, what are you accusing me of? Look at me."
Every ugly thought I'd ever pushed away came rushing in at once.
A tear rolled down his cheek, then another, and he didn't wipe them away. He just stood there, staring at our baby as if she'd rearranged the entire world.
"No," my husband said, shaking his head. "No, that isn't what I mean. God. Eloise, I'm sorry."
He dropped into the chair beside my bed as though the truth had knocked the strength from his legs. He pressed both hands against his face for a long moment. When he lowered them, he looked 10 years older!
