CHAPTER SEVEN
Alex
The apartment had never been quiet before Jessica. Alex realized that the first night he returned alone. There had always been noise. Before marriage, roommates. Neighbors. Traffic. The bad refrigerator in his first Manhattan apartment clicking every ten minutes.
Then Jessica. Music from her studio. Her phone calls with Natalie. The scratch of pencils late at night. The television playing some terrible reality show she insisted she wasn't watching while narrating every plot point to him.
Pregnancy had made the apartment quieter. Jessica slept more. Worked less. Moved carefully. But she had still been there.Now Alex opened the fro nt door and walked into silence.
He left the lights off. For several minutes he stood in the foyer with his keys in his hand. Jessica’s shoes were still beneath the console. A scarf hung from the hook beside the door. Her bag for the hospital appointment was gone because Natalie had taken it. Everything else remained.
Alex walked toward the bedroom. The pregnancy pillow occupied half the bed. He stared at it. Then at her side. Alex sat. He had slept maybe six hours total since Sophia’s birth. It didn't matter.
The bed felt impossible. He got up. The nursery door was open.
Alex stopped outside it. The crib had been assembled weeks earlier. Jessica had chosen the wood after rejecting six options Alex considered functionally identical. They were not identical, she had informed him.
One was too yellow. One looked cheap. One had “hostile Scandinavian energy,” a phrase Alex had still not managed to define. Above the crib, Jessica had started painting the mural. A crescent moon. Small stars. Clouds. Half the wall remained unfinished.Alex entered.
He stood beneath the painted moon. Sophia had been here. Not physically.But in every choice. Every plan.Every ridiculous argument over drawer organizers. Now she lived in a hospital incubator.
Jessica was sleeping in a hospital room where he had to request permission to visit.
Alex sat down on the floor, his back against the wall, and his head in his hands. He thought we had more time. He thought she was just scared. He was wrong so very wrong. Eventually sleep one out.
Alex’s phone rang startling him out of his restless sleep on the nursery floor. He checked the screen it was Graham. He almost ignored it but eventually answered.
“What?”
“Good morning to you too.” Graham said.
Alex checked the time. It was past nine.He hadn’t realized it was morning.
“What do you need?” Alex mumbled.
“To know whether you’re coming in.”
“No.”
“Good.”
Alex frowned. “Then why are you asking?”
“To make sure.”
“I’m going to the hospital.”
“You should.”
Alex heard papers moving. Then Graham said, “You need to talk to someone.”
“I’m talking to you.”
“I meant professionally.”
Alex rubbed his eyes. “I don’t need therapy because I made one terrible decision.”
Silence.
Alex exhaled.. “That sounded...”
“Defensive.”
“Graham listen —”
Graham cut him off. “You asked me why nobody told you to leave the ceremony.”
Alex’s remembered. He had cornered Graham outside the hospital after arriving. Why didn’t you tell me to go? Why did you let me finish? As if Graham had been responsible for Alex’s marriage.
“No one told me what was happening.” Alex sat on the edge of the nursery chair. “I knew she was in the hospital. I thought they were monitoring her. I thought there was time.”
“Alex.”
“What?”
“No one at the firm asked you to stay.”
Alex went silent.
Graham continued. “The committee would have understood. I could have accepted the medal. Hell, they could have mailed it to you.”
Alex looked toward the half-painted stars. “I know.”
“So stop making the ceremony into an obligation.”
“I’m not.”
“You are every time you explain what you thought.”
Alex gripped the phone. “What do you want from me?”
“I want you to stop asking how you could have known she was going to need emergency surgery.”
Graham’s voice lowered. “She already needed you.”
Alex said nothing.
Graham exhaled. “You want to fix this?”
“Yes.”
The answer was immediate.
“Then find somebody whose job is stopping people from lying to themselves.”
Dr. Miriam Cole’s office contained too many books and no visible clock. Alex disliked both things. He sat on a gray chair and wondered why therapists always seemed determined to furnish rooms like expensive libraries.
Dr. Cole sat across from him with a legal pad on her lap. She was perhaps fifty. Silver threaded through dark hair cut bluntly at her jaw. She didn't smile often. Alex appreciated that.
“Why are you here?” she asked.
“My wife asked for a separation.”
“Why?”
Alex looked at her. “I thought that was what we were going to discuss.”
“It is.”
“She had our daughter a few days ago.”
“Congratulations.”
“She was premature.”
Dr. Cole nodded.
“And there was an emergency.”
“What kind?”
“Pregnancy complication. Emergency C-section.”
“Were you there?”
“No.”
That one word filled the room. Dr. Cole waited.
Alex hated silence. “I was at an awards ceremony.”
“For work?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know your wife was in the hospital?”
“Yes.”
Dr. Cole wrote something.
Alex’s irritation rose. “You can ask why.”
“I assume you intend to tell me.”
“She called me from her doctor’s office. They were admitting her for monitoring. She asked me to come.”
“And you didn’t.”
“No.”
“What did you say?”
Alex looked toward the shelves.“I told her I would come after the ceremony.”
“Was that all?”
His jaw tightened. “No.”
Dr. Cole watched him and waited.
Alex had repeated the sentence so many times in his own head that it no longer sounded real to him. “I said I couldn’t keep abandoning everything every time she was frightened.”
Dr. Cole’s pen stopped. Alex looked at her. She didn't react. He almost wished she would.
“That was cruel,” he said.
“Yes.”
The answer irritated him.
“I didn’t mean it the way it sounded.”
“What did you mean?”
“That I thought she was scared because she didn’t know what was happening. I didn’t understand that it had become an emergency.”
Dr. Cole tilted her head. “Was she frightened?”
“Yes.”
“Did she know what was happening?”
“No.”
“And because she didn’t know, you believed she needed you less?”
Alex frowned. “No.”
“That is what you just described.”
He leaned forward. “I’m not explaining this well.”
“Then try again.”
He hated her already. That probably meant Graham had chosen well.
Alex rubbed his palms together.“I have spent months dropping everything.”
“Dropping what?”
“Work. Meetings. Travel. Appointments. She has had a difficult pregnancy.”
“You resent that.”
“No.”
The answer came too fast. Dr. Cole made a note..
He looked away. “I resented feeling like every symptom might become a crisis.”
“Why?”
“Because most of them didn’t.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Alex said nothing.
Dr. Cole set the pen down. “What were you afraid would happen if one did?”
The room became too warm. Alex stared at her. “I wasn’t afraid.”
She said nothing.
He laughed once. “Right. That’s the therapy trick?”
“There are no tricks.”
“You ask the obvious question and wait until I surrender?”
“I don’t need you to surrender.”
“Then what do you need?”
“Nothing.”
The answer startled him.
Dr. Cole folded her hands over the legal pad. “You said you’re here because your wife asked for a separation. That tells me your goal is probably getting her back.”
“It is.”
“That is not necessarily my goal. My job is not to help you persuade your wife to return.”
“I didn’t say persuade.”
“No. You said fix.”
He looked away.
“Do you love her?”
“Yes.”
“Do you believe she loves you?”
His chest tightened. “Yes.”
“Then why isn’t that enough?”
Alex looked at her.
Dr. Cole’s expression remained calm. “Your wife loves you and is still leaving. That suggests the problem is not whether either of you has feelings.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
He thought of Jessica telling him he knew what happened but not what he had done.
“I’m beginning to.”
Dr. Cole picked up the pen again.
“What did Jessica do after you told her you couldn’t keep abandoning everything when she was frightened?”
Alex looked at the floor.
“She stopped asking me to come.”
“And you considered that reassuring?”
His head came up. “No.”
“Didn’t you?”
Alex remembered the call. Her voice changing. You don’t have to. Take your time. He remembered hearing those words and feeling relief that she understood. A sick feeling moved through him.
“Yes. I did.” He admitted.
Dr. Cole nodded. “Then perhaps we start there.”
Alex drove to the hospital after therapy. He didn't go to Jessica’s room. He texted first.
I’m here to see Sophia. Would you prefer I come by your room or give you space?
The response came ten minutes later.
Space please.
Alex stared at the message.
Then typed:
Okay.
He went to the NICU. Sophia was sleeping.
The nurse showed him how to change her diaper around the wires.
His hands looked enormous next to her. He listened carefully.
Asked questions. Wrote down things he knew he would remember anyway because doing something with his hands was easier than sitting in the truth.
He was fastening the tiny diaper when Jessica entered the bay in a wheelchair with Natalie. Alex looked up. Their eyes met. He nearly said her name. Then stopped. Jessica had asked for space. She looked at Sophia. Then at what Alex was doing.
“Hey,” he said quietly.
“Hi.”
He finished the diaper and stepped back. Jessica moved closer. For several minutes, neither spoke. Alex watched her watch their daughter. He wondered when Jessica had last eaten. Whether she had slept. Whether the pain medication was working. Questions lined up in his head. He didn't ask them.
Eventually Jessica looked at him. “I’m being discharged tomorrow if my pressure stays where they want it.”
His was filled with relief.. “That’s good.”
“I’ll still be here every day.”
“Of course.”
Jessica looked at Sophia. “I’m trying to figure out transportation because I’m not supposed to drive yet.”
“I can take you.”
She stiffened.
Alex regretted it immediately. “Or Natalie can. Or whoever you want.”
Jessica looked at him again. “Thank you.”
Alex wanted to tell her he had seen a therapist. Wanted the fact to matter. To prove something. He heard Jessica’s voice from yesterday. You keep bringing me things. Therapy could become another folder. Another flower arrangement. Another receipt. He kept it to himself.
That night, Alex slept on Jessica’s side of the bed. He told himself it was accidental. It wasn’t. Her pillow still smelled faintly like her shampoo. He pressed his face against it and hated himself for taking comfort from something she hadn't chosen to give him.
His phone rang at midnight. It was Graham
Alex answered.
“What?”
“You awake?”
“Yes.”
“You sound terrible.”
“Thank you.”
“How’s the baby?”
“Stable.”
“Jessica?”
“Discharged tomorrow.”
“She coming home?”
“No.” Alex said not bothering to hide the sadness in his voice.
Graham didn't say he was sorry.
Alex appreciated that.
After several seconds, Graham said, “You keep calling it the night you failed her.”
Alex opened his eyes.
“What else would I call it?”
“The question is whether that was when you failed her.”
Alex frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“What if that was just the night she finally believed you?”
Alex sat up.“Believed what?”
Graham was quiet.“That she couldn’t count on you.”
The call ended a few minutes later. Alex remained sitting in the dark.
He thought about Jessica deleting messages he never knew she had written.
Appointments she stopped asking him to attend.
The way she had begun saying fine before he finished asking questions.
The relief he had felt every time she told him she didn't need him.
For weeks, Alex had believed Jessica was becoming less anxious.
Maybe she had simply become less willing to show him she was afraid.
He lay back against her pillow. Sleep didn't come.