The lie tasted bitter every time, yet I swallowed it because it felt safer than the truth. When labor finally began, it arrived violently in the middle of the night, and the pain was so intense that I could barely stand upright as I called for a ride to a district hospital in downtown Austin.
By the time I was admitted, my back was soaked with sweat and my fingers were clutching the bedsheets so tightly that my knuckles turned white.
The delivery doctor entered the room wearing a white coat and a surgical mask, and his voice sounded familiar yet distant as he said, “You need to push harder, the baby is coming.”
I focused on breathing and pushing through the waves of pain, and then he lowered his mask slightly to speak more clearly. In that instant I recognized him, and the world seemed to tilt beneath me.
It was Zachary Collins, the man who had once been my husband and who now stood at the foot of my hospital bed staring at my swollen belly and my medical chart.
For a moment neither of us spoke, yet the truth hung heavy in the air between us.
“Madeline, what are you doing here,” he asked quietly, his voice rough with disbelief.
