Chapter 9 Willow
WILLOW
I pick the café for a meeting because it’s neutral. Public enough to keep everyone on their best behavior, private enough that a corner table and the hiss of the espresso machine can muffle hard words. At lunchtime, light spills through the big windows and makes dust look like glitter.
They arrive together, giving each other furtive looks and whispering out the side of their mouths. White shirts, sleeves rolled. No coats this time. Daylight doesn’t flatter them so much as unmask them.
Sean spots me first. Warmth blinks on in his face like someone flipped a switch, and the relief that runs through me is ridiculous. He lifts a hand, then remembers himself and tucks it into a pocket.
Declan carries the air of a weather front. Bigger in daylight, somehow, with broad shoulders and blue eyes that sweep the room and then land on me like I’m something to safeguard. A good instinct in an exam room. Less comfortable across a café table.
Rowan hangs back half a step, controlled, as if he lined up each molecule before he walked in. His jaw works once when he sees me and then goes still. Ocean-calm over riptide.
“Thanks for meeting,” Sean says, taking the chair across from me. He doesn’t sit until I nod. Gentle. Careful. “We wanted to…sort this the right way.”
This, meaning my pregnancy. I can’t help but agree. It does feel like a this. “I want that too,” I say. My voice is steady. That feels like a victory.
Declan claims the chair to my left, Rowan the seat to my right. Rowan slides his back a bit so our arm heat isn’t radiating onto each other.
We’re a strange parody of a date: three Irish doctors and a woman from South Carolina walk into a café. One of them is pregnant with triplets…
“So,” Sean says. He folds his hands into a steeple and rests his chin on his fingers. Just then, a waitress walks up, passing out menus full of toasted sandwiches and pastries. “Did anyone want anything? Just black coffee for me, thanks.”
“Ginger tea with lemon,” I say.
Declan and Rowan shake their heads.
As soon as the waitress leaves, Sean continues, unfazed. “We’re going to recuse ourselves from your case. All three of us. It’s a clear conflict of interest.”
Declan’s forearms tense, a tendril of auburn hair falling to his forehead until he pushes it back with an impatient finger. “We’ve already messaged our attending and the coordinator. No direct care, no chart updates, no peeking. Clear conflict. We won’t be treating you.”
The breath I’ve been holding lets go. I hadn’t realized how much I needed to hear those exact words until my ribs loosen around them. “Thank you,” I say.
Sean nods. “We’ve documented the conflict. MUSC will assign you a different team.” He glances at Rowan like they rehearsed this and Rowan is missing his line. He looks back at me and says, “It protects us and you.”
“Will…” I tighten my grip around my mug. “Will people know? About…” I look up at them and see three intense pairs of eyes on me. I gasp with the memory of the last time that happened. My blood was pounding in my head that night too. “Us?”
“Absolutely not,” Declan says immediately. “We’ll keep it quiet.”
Sean clears his throat and leans forward, adding, “Not that you should be ashamed. We’re kind of considered catches around here.”
A corner of my mouth lifts. “Ironically, my stock just went down.”
He grins and I feel my shoulders drop a fraction, like my spine recognizes him before my brain gives permission. He glances down at my drink and asks, “Didn’t you want a lemon wedge?”
I shake my head and tell him, “It’s okay.”
“Let me get it for you,” Declan says quickly, standing.
My hand shoots out, pulling him back down, as I shake my head wildly. “No, no, it’s really okay, Declan! Please, just sit. Didn’t we say no care?”
Rowan looks up sharply, like I’ve just awakened him with that sentence.
His distance has been the sharpest thing in the room so far, but suddenly his gaze is unflinching.
His voice is smooth like honey, and a heat presses between my legs and against my throat as I remember certain things he’s said to me in that voice. “Define care.”
I blink against the sentence, only two words but so imposing. “What do you mean?”
“I would define care in a professional sense as having any sort of authority or influence over medical decisions pertaining to you. It sounds like you would rather none of us care for you in any capacity. Is that true?” He presses his lips together, and I try not to remember the feeling of them dragging against my jaw.
“No,” I whisper. “That isn’t true.”
“So you’d prefer that we care for you on some level?” he clarifies, still staring me down.
Swallowing, I say, “Yes. I would hope you would.”
Rowan’s chair legs scrape across the ground as he pushes it back, standing, his hands on the table like a politician.
“Grand. Because for the record”—he leans forward—“I wanted to break all the rules when it came to you. I wanted to stay your doctor. I don’t want anyone else in charge of your care.
So if you’re telling me not to care at all, that would be a relief. ”
I shake my head at his glowering face, even as it turns away from me and Rowan walks away.
Clearing his throat, Sean cuts in, saying, “He’ll be okay, Willow.
Regardless of what he’s saying now, we really want to apologize for the position you’re in.
We didn’t—” He stops himself and recalibrates.
“We should’ve…handled things differently. Or not at all.”
There are a hundred ways to answer. I choose small and true. “Me too.”
A silence settles that somehow doesn’t chafe. The server refills my water. Sean thanks her by name; of course he caught it off the badge.
“I’m not telling anyone,” I say quietly. “About the ship. Not my parents. Not my boss. Not MUSC, beyond the conflict disclosure. Cheyenne knows. Dylan knows. That’s it.”
Declan nods once, solemn. “We’ll support you in whatever you do,” he says. “The past stays the past.”
“And if you need anything nonmedical,” Sean adds quickly, as if he senses the edge of my hurt and wants to blunt it, “practical stuff—rides, connecting you with a social worker for resources—let me know.”
“Or me,” Declan adds. “No strings.”
My eyes sting without permission. “No strings,” I echo.
Declan’s phone buzzes. He ignores it. He’s watching my face like it’s a chart and he’s training himself not to reach for the stethoscope he’s not allowed to wear around me anymore.
“We should go,” Sean says, standing. He waits for Declan like he can’t leave until they both do.
Declan sits, his shoulders slumped, his eyes darting from the table to me. Finally, he murmurs, “You really don’t know if one of us is the father?”
The lump in my throat presses harder, and I shake my head.
I don’t know why I have an instinct to lie.
Maybe it’s to test their goodness and intentions, to find out how far their kindness stretches, some tortured remnant of my childhood, waiting for my dad to come home and finding out he’s left us all for a new family…
But I do. I lie to them and let them think there are other men in the running. “I’m sorry, no.”
Declan nods, not looking at me. When his eyes finally meet mine, I see tears clinging to his long, ginger lashes. He nods again, smiling through it, and stands. “Okay. Take care, Willow Abel.”
“Thank you,” I say, and mean it. For the recusal, for the plan, for the attempt at care through distance.
When I walk back to the car, Cheyenne is waiting in the driver’s seat. Dylan messes with the knobs in the car until he sees me, and he straightens and starts to get out. I shake my head as I open the back door, saying, “I’m not immobile yet.”
Dylan twists in his seat to look back at me. “Just trying to be respectful.”
“Respectful? God, are you going to start calling me ma’am?”
He scoffs at my unappreciation for his manners. “I might. Would you like that, ma’am?”
“No, Dylan, I would not.”
“So, how were the lads? Did they juggle apples? Pour tea on their heads? I never know with Irish people.”
“They’re doctors, not leprechauns,” I mutter, looking out the window.
Cheyenne takes one look at my face in the rearview mirror and softens. “You okay?”
“I will be,” I say, meaning it and not.
“Tell us everything,” she says, her fingers tight around her fuzzy pink steering wheel. “Use small words and large hand gestures…for Dylan.”
“Yeah, for me,” Dylan says good-naturedly.
So, I do. I tell them about the recusal and the ethics disclosure and the fact that I’m now adjacent to a team of physicians who set a boundary and then honored it in front of me instead of asking me to carry it alone.
I tell them about the lemon wedge and Sean’s remembering and Declan’s reflexes and Rowan’s proclamation followed by his exit.
Dylan whistles low. “I guess collecting men like Pokémon wasn’t a good idea, after all.”
“If only someone had said so at the time,” Cheyenne says sarcastically, grinning.
“If you want, you can just tell me what to do from now on, and I’ll do it,” I tell her, tapping her shoulder from the back seat.
“My rules are simple. Just avoid getting together with a certified litter of men who also happen to know each other.”
“A litter?” I squeak.
Dylan pats my foot. “Chey, baby, you can’t call men a litter.”
“Fine,” she says, unrepentant. “A set? A sampler platter?”
“Better,” Dylan says, then turns to me. “Sampler platter aside, I like that they’re doing the professional thing. That tells me they take their work seriously, not just their…you know.” He gestures vaguely at the air in front of his jeans. “Charm.”
Cheyenne slants me a look. “Still. I’m sure they’re good men, but…this is messy, Willow. Protect your heart.”
“I know.”
“I’m serious.” She smiles at me through the rearview mirror. “Just because they did the right thing today doesn’t mean they get free rent in your head. Ethics aren’t flowers—they’re a baseline.”
“I know,” I say again, quieter. The ultrasound photo on my fridge floats to mind—three small moons, three bright centers. “It’s…complicated.”
“Of course it is,” she says, softer. “You’re allowed complicated. Point is, you don’t owe anyone access to you right now. Not your mom. Not your boss. Not three men with soft voices and impossible cheekbones.”
“Impossible,” Dylan echoes, delighted. “Put that on the list of rules: No impossible cheekbones allowed after eight p.m.”
Cheyenne snaps her fingers. “We really should make a list.”
I groan. “Oh God.”
“A fun list,” she amends. “Rules for the next few months. Willow’s Heart Preservation Protocol.
” She grabs a pen from the center console and gives it to Dylan, and he starts scribbling obediently on the back of some mail from the glove box.
“Number one: no texting after nine p.m., because hormones plus nighttime equals crying over insurance commercials.”
“True,” Dylan says.
“Number two: if, before nine pm, you’re starting to feel some type of way…
make sure you’re not hungry.” She holds up three fingers.
“Number three: if Rowan continues to be distant in a way that makes you ache, you tell me and we go buy something we don’t need and return it the next day after looking at ourselves in good lighting. ”
Dylan nods gravely. “If you see something that Dylan might like, that’s cool too…”
“Number four,” Cheyenne says, “we plan joy on purpose. Weekly. Small.”
They tease me a little longer, the kind of teasing that’s gentle, ridiculous, and takes the sting out of a day that cut deep.
Cheyenne makes me promise to try the fancy prenatal gummy that tastes like orange slices.
Dylan asks if someone necessarily has to be pregnant to take those gummies or if they’re good for everyone.
When we get to my place, Cheyenne parks the car and gets out to hug me.
It centers me, and I try not to think of what a hug with my best friend will be like as the babies get bigger.
She pulls back and looks into my face in a familiar way, pushing some of my hair behind my ears.
“Hey,” she tells me quietly, “you did good today.”
“Did I?” My voice comes out small and honest.
“You kept your center,” she says. “You named what you needed. You didn’t let anyone else drive.”
When I get inside, I stand in my kitchen and press my palm to the cool glass of the ultrasound print.
Three little peanut-shaped blurs. Three futures.
My phone buzzes on the counter with a new email from MUSC—appointment confirmed with Dr. Patel’s team, Wednesday at 10:15.
I feel, for the first time in days, like my body is mine even as it makes a miracle without my conscious instruction.
The café is already becoming a photograph in my mind—Rowan’s profile etched against the menu written on a blackboard in the background, Sean’s hand around a cup of coffee, Declan’s wet lashes and tight shirt.
Another buzz. A message from Cheyenne: I told Dylan we’re naming the Heart Preservation Protocol “Project Don’t Cry Over Cheekbones.” He said it’s too long. Send help.
I laugh. I text her a heart. I text Dylan a knife emoji because balance.
Then I put the phone down and stand very still. I take the prenatal with a glass of water and a lemon wedge. I open the window and let the marsh air in. Somewhere, gulls argue like old men.
I breathe in. I breathe out.
My heart is loud, but for once, I’m the one keeping time.