“No,” he murmured. “This can’t be right. This isn’t what I expected.”
I looked up at him, confused.
“Ian? What are you talking about?”
He didn’t answer.
Leona had been standing near the window with her Birkin in the crook of her elbow.
She crossed the room, studied Antonia for several seconds, and looked at her son.
“What a disappointment,” she said quietly.
A cold wave of panic rolled through me.
Our daughter was healthy.
The nurse had just said so.
“Please stop,” I said, pulling Antonia closer. “You’re frightening me. What’s wrong?”
Ian stepped backward.
He wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“When you leave the hospital, don’t come back to our house,” he said. “I want a divorce.”
“A divorce? Ian, our daughter was just born!”
He shook his head.
“I can’t believe this is happening.”
“What do you think I’ve done?”
He refused to explain.
I turned to Leona.
She looked uncomfortable, but she only put a hand on her son’s arm.
“Come on, sweetheart. We should go.”
“Leona, please! You know what’s wrong, don’t you?”
She avoided my eyes.
The door closed behind them with a soft hydraulic sigh.
And just like that, I was alone with the daughter we’d waited six years to meet.
Antonia began to cry.
I held her against my chest and rocked her while my own tears ran down into my hair.
For two days, every time my phone lit up, I reached for it.
It was never him.
I sent a photograph of Antonia’s tiny hand wrapped around my finger.
Please look at her. She’s the little girl we wanted so badly.
He never answered.
When the hospital discharged me, my parents offered to let Antonia and me stay with them.
My father, Eugene, a retired mail carrier with a bad back and a good heart, drove us.
My mother, Rochelle, who spent thirty years as a labor and delivery nurse, sat in the back seat with her hand on the car seat the whole way.
I asked Dad to stop at the house first.
I needed my medication, my clothes, the diaper bag.
When we pulled into the driveway, there were five large black trash bags lined up by the garage.
My stomach tightened.
They held my clothes and my toiletries.
They held half of the baby supplies I’d bought myself.
