7. Heather
— ? —
Heather
The beeping is steady. That’s supposed to be a good sign.
I lie in the hospital bed with one hand pressed flat over my stomach, as if I can protect the small life inside by sheer force of will. The bleeding has slowed. The doctor used words like cautiously optimistic and strict bed rest and we’ll know more in the morning.
The fluorescent lights hum above me, harsh and unforgiving. Everything smells like antiseptic and fear.
Maya sits beside me, one hand wrapped around mine, not speaking. Not needing to. She’s been here since they let her in, a solid presence in the chaos, and I don’t know what I’d do without her.
Our parents left an hour ago, my mother’s mascara destroyed, my father’s jaw tight with the effort of not crying.
They learned they were going to be grandparents in a hospital waiting room, and they learned it because Grayson Hale told their daughter to pack her things while she was twelve weeks pregnant with his child.
My father hasn’t spoken a single word to Grayson. I doubt he ever will again.
“You should sleep,” Maya says quietly.
“I can’t.”
“The baby needs you to rest.”
“I know.” My hand presses harder against my stomach, feeling nothing but the thin hospital gown, the slight swell that could be pregnancy or could be bloating. Twelve weeks. Still too early to feel movement. Still too early to know for certain that everything is okay.
“They said the heartbeat is strong.”
“I know.”
“Heather-”
“I know.” I turn my head to look at her. “I know everything they said. I was there. But knowing and believing are different things right now.”
Maya squeezes my hand. She doesn’t argue.
A soft sound at the door.
Maya’s head comes up. Her expression hardens into something fierce and protective, and I know who’s there without looking.
“Send him away,” I say quietly.
“Gladly.”
But before Maya can rise, the door opens.
Grayson stands in the doorway looking like a man walking to his own execution. His shirt is still stained with my blood. His face is gray, hollowed out, and there are tear tracks on his cheeks that he hasn’t bothered to wipe away.
“Please,” he says. “Five minutes. And then I’ll go.”
Maya turns to me. Your call.
I look at my husband. At the photographs still visible in his pocket. At the shell of the man I thought I knew.
Part of me wants to scream at him. Part of me wants to throw something. Part of me wants to curl into a ball and pretend this isn’t happening.
But there’s a conversation we need to have, and putting it off won’t make it easier.
“Five minutes,” I say. “Maya, please.”
My sister hesitates. Squeezes my hand. Leaves with one last warning look at Grayson that promises violence if he makes things worse.
The door closes.
We’re alone.
Grayson doesn’t come closer. He stands by the door like he doesn’t trust himself to take up space in the room where his wife is lying.
“I know,” he says.
“You know what?”
“Everything. Julian is in the waiting room. He told me-” His voice breaks. “I know Chris is his fiancé. I know the ring was for Julian. I know you were building them a wedding.”
I don’t rescue him. Don’t make this easier.
“I followed you.” The words come out like he’s forcing them through broken glass.
“For weeks. I let my mother hire someone to photograph you. I collected evidence like you were a criminal instead of my wife. And I never once-” His voice cracks again.
“I never once asked you what was really happening.”
“No. You didn’t.”
“I watched you lie about grocery stores and yoga classes, and I told myself it was proof that you were hiding something. I never considered that you might be hiding something good. That you might be protecting someone else’s happiness instead of destroying ours.”
“You believed your mother over me.”
The words hang in the air. Grayson flinches like I’ve struck him.
“Yes.”
“Five years.” My voice is almost shaking. “Every dinner at her table where she made me feel like an outsider. Every fight I ended first because it wasn’t worth the damage. Every version of myself I softened so your family would find me easier to love.”
“Heather-”
“I kept a running tally.” I look at him steadily, and I watch my words land. “Not of what I gave. Of what I trusted it was building. Five years of choosing you, Grayson. Every single day. And it turned out the whole account emptied against one envelope of pictures you never even questioned.”
He’s crying now. I watch the tears track down his face and feel nothing.
“You didn’t need proof to marry me,” I say. “But you needed none at all to bury me.”
The silence stretches. The monitors beep. Somewhere down the hall, a phone rings.
“I don’t know how to fix this,” he finally says.
“Neither do I.”
“But I want to try. Whatever it takes, however long-”
“Maya.” I call toward the door. “The closet. Top shelf. Bring me the yellow box.”
I hear movement in the hallway. A moment later, Maya appears with the box - she must have grabbed it from my things when she packed my bag. She sets it on the bed, gives Grayson another warning look, and leaves without a word.
I hold the box in my lap for a moment. It’s lighter than it should be, given what it contains. What it was supposed to mean.
Then I open it and hold it out to Grayson.
Inside: tiny shoes. Yellow. With ducks on them.
And a card, addressed to Daddy in my handwriting, dated for a reveal that will never happen now.
“This was your surprise,” I say. “I was going to give it to you the weekend after Chris’s wedding, when everything was done and I could finally breathe. I practiced what I was going to say. I imagined your face when you opened it.”
Grayson reaches for the shoes. “Maya told me about the shoes. Seeing them is worse.” His hands are shaking so badly he almost drops them.
“You were going to cry in our kitchen,” I say. “And I was going to hold you while you did.”
I watch him understand.
He didn’t just doubt me. He robbed us both. He stole the moment I’d been planning since the day I saw two pink lines, and he did it because he chose to believe his mother over the woman who’d loved him for five years.
The sob that tears out of him is raw and ugly. His whole body folds in on itself, and he’s gripping the tiny shoes like they’re the only solid thing in the world, and for one terrible moment I want to reach for him.
I keep my hands in my lap.
“Go home, Grayson.”
“Heather-”
“Go home. Or go to your mother’s. Or go somewhere that isn’t here.” I take back the box, close it gently. “I can’t look at you right now.”
He makes it to the door. Stops with his hand on the handle.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I know it doesn’t-”
“It doesn’t.”
He nods once. Opens the door.
And I watch through the glass as my husband sinks into a waiting room chair like a man who intends to grow old in it.