6. Gianna
— ? —
Gianna
Everything after that happened the way things happen in dreams. I was only half there.
The operating room was blinding. White lights, white walls, the blue surgical drapes that blocked my view of what they were doing below my chest. I couldn’t feel anything from the waist down, which should have been a relief but instead just made me feel disembodied, disconnected from the violence happening to my own body.
Daisy was there, somehow. They’d let her into the operating room, scrubs hastily thrown over her clothes, her face pale above the surgical mask, and she held my hand with a grip that would probably leave bruises.
“You’re doing great,” she kept saying. “You’re doing so great, Gi.”
I wasn’t doing anything. I was lying on a table while strangers cut me open. I was alone in the most important moment of my life.
And then…
A cry.
Thin and outraged, the sound of a tiny human furious at being evicted from the only home he’d ever known.
“It’s a boy,” the doctor announced. “Healthy, good set of lungs.”
They cleaned him off and wrapped him in a blanket and laid him on my chest, this impossibly small creature with his scrunched-up face and his tiny fists and his perfect, perfect fingers.
“Hi,” I whispered, tears streaming down my face. “Hi, baby. I’m your mama.”
He blinked up at me with unfocused eyes, his crying fading to soft hiccups as he heard my voice. My voice, which he’d been listening to for nine months. My voice, which was the first familiar thing in this terrifying new world.
“Alex,” I told him. “Your name is Alex.”
And I completely gave up to exhaustion.
***
The recovery room was quieter.
They’d stitched me up and moved me to a private suite, the kind of suite that came with being married to a billionaire, all soft lighting and expensive furniture and a view of the Austin skyline that I couldn’t have cared less about.
Alex was sleeping in a bassinet beside my bed. Daisy was curled up in a chair by the window, exhausted, her mascara still smeared from crying.
I’d tried calling Orion six more times since the delivery. Voicemail, every time.
Eighteen missed calls now. Eighteen.
It was morning in Singapore. He should have been awake. He should have been checking his phone. He should have been here.
I was staring at my phone, thumb hovering over his contact for the nineteenth time, when a notification popped up on my screen.
Instagram. Demi had posted.
I should have ignored it. Should have put the phone down and focused on my son, on recovery, on anything except my sister’s carefully curated social media presence.
But some masochistic instinct made me tap the notification.
The photo loaded, and my breath caught in my throat.
A sleek Singapore bar, all mood lighting and velvet booths. Champagne bottles with sparklers casting golden light across grinning faces. Orion in the center of the frame, his tie loosened, his hair disheveled, looking more alive than I’d seen him in months.
Looking happy.
Demi was pressed against his side, her arm looped through his, her smile triumphant.
The caption: Celebrating the big win! ???
The timestamp: three hours ago.
Three hours ago, while I was in surgery. While they were cutting our son out of my body.
He was celebrating.
“Gi?” Daisy’s voice, groggy with sleep. “What is it?”
I handed her the phone. Watched her face as she looked at the screen.
“That motherfucker,” she breathed.
“Yeah.”
“I’m going to kill him. I’m going to…”
“Daisy.” My voice came out flat. Dead. “Can you find me a lawyer?”
She went still. “A lawyer?”
“A divorce lawyer. A good one.” I looked at my son, sleeping peacefully, completely unaware that his family was falling apart before he was even a day old. “I want this marriage over.”
Daisy didn’t argue. Didn’t try to talk me out of it. She just nodded, pulled out her own phone, and started making calls.
By noon, I had an appointment with Monica Reyes, the best family attorney in the city.
***
By the time Orion’s plane landed in Austin, forty-one hours after our son was born, the paperwork was already in motion.
He burst through the hospital room door like a hurricane.
“Gianna… baby… I’m so sorry…”
He stopped dead when he saw my face.
I was sitting up in bed, Alex cradled in my arms, and I knew exactly what I looked like. Pale, exhausted, and completely, utterly closed off.
He looked like hell. Rumpled from the flight, dark circles under his eyes, his jaw shadowed with stubble. He was still in his travel clothes, boots dusty, like he’d come straight from the airstrip without stopping.
“Is that…” His voice cracked. “Is that him?”
“His name is Alex.”
“Alex.” He stepped toward the bed, reaching for the baby, but something in my expression made him hesitate. “Can I…”
“Why didn’t you answer your phone?”
The question landed like a slap. I watched him flinch.
“I… my phone… the meetings were…”
“Eighteen calls, Orion. I called you eighteen times. You didn’t answer once.”
“The meetings went late, and then there was the celebration, and I had my phone on silent because…”
“On silent.” I laughed. “Your wife was in labor, and you had your phone on silent?”
“I didn’t know you were in labor! I thought…”
“Daisy called Demi from the hospital lobby.” My voice didn’t shake. I’d had forty-one hours to make sure it wouldn’t. “Told her I was going into surgery. Told her to walk down the hall and put the phone in your hand. Demi said she’d get you.”
I watched it hit him. Watched him not understand, and then understand.
“She never…”
“No. She never.” I shifted Alex in my arms, and he made a soft sound of protest before settling again. “And you never looked. Eighteen calls, Orion, and you never once looked at your phone. Well, I’m done waiting.”
Orion’s face went pale. “What does that mean?”
“I’ve contacted a lawyer. I’m filing for divorce.”