38. Could Have Been
COULD HAVE BEEN
His hands were slick inside the gloves, the thin paper gown clinging to his throat like it might choke him. Not from panic, but from meaning. This mattered too much.
The drive to the hospital had blurred past him. Red lights were ignored. His speed unchecked. He didn’t remember parking, didn’t remember shutting the door, only running, his heart pounding, and headed straight into the ER.
Ava was already there. Taylor was being rushed toward the delivery ward, fear written across her face and Cora’s, him keeping pace at her side. Gabriela was there also.
The ultrasound confirmed what they already feared.
No heartbeat.
The umbilical cord was wrapped tightly around the baby’s neck.
Hours passed. Gabriela returned to the ward and then to his side. He’d told her to leave. To go home and sleep, but she refused.
He was glad. He needed her by him.
Taylor’s body was failing her trying to deliver. She was exhausted, unresponsive, and refusing to dilate any further. She sobbed and begged for it to be over, begged for the baby to come out as if it were an alien that frightened her more than life alone.
Her blood pressure climbed into dangerous territory, her panic spiraling beyond control.
She was a frightened young girl in pain. There was no reasoning with her. No calming her.
Nothing. There was no choice left. They couldn’t risk her life.
The emergency C-section was called.
Taylor lay numb beneath the drape, drained past pain, her face hidden as he stood beside Ava, assisting on instinct and training alone. Gabriela was in the room watching, waiting to be called on if needed.
She wouldn’t be needed for the baby, and with any luck, not for Taylor either.
This child wasn’t his.
He’d kept that truth firmly in place, a wall he hadn’t let himself breach just yet.
As much as he wanted it, he knew until it was finalized there would be no relief. Only those words never really sank in. He never really believed them.
And it didn’t stop the hurt and pain of what could have been.
What he was trying to hold back from allowing himself to feel.
Now he watched Ava lift the baby free and carefully untangle the cord, cut it away, and hand the small, silent body to him.
He wrapped the baby gently, a yearning that once was but was no more, his hands steady despite the fracture in his chest. To his heart.
Telling himself not to get attached hadn’t really worked.
“Do you want to see him?” he asked Taylor softly. “Hold him once?”
Taylor’s eyes stayed shut. Tears slid silently from their corners as she shook her head, again and again.
No.
And the weight of that answer settled into him just as deeply as the child in his arms. She never wanted this child.
It would have been his.
He nodded once, accepting her answer without question.
“Okay,” he said softly.
He passed the baby to the nurse waiting beside him, turning away before his hands betrayed the tremor running through them. The sudden and sharp loss pressed hard against his chest, but he forced it down. This moment wasn’t his.
He had no hold on that child today. He had to keep telling himself that.
Taylor lay rigid beneath the lights, her shoulders shaking now that the worst was over. He stepped closer, resting a steady hand on her arm, trying anything to offer comfort.
“You did well,” he said. “It’s over. We’re going to take care of you.”
“I’m sorry,” Taylor cried. “I was trying to do everything you asked. I didn’t mean it. I really didn’t.”
His heart was breaking for another reason.
This child who just delivered a child didn’t need to carry this guilt. This burden that she’d let him down.
That something she did caused this outcome.
“You did nothing wrong,” he said quietly. “Nothing. Sometimes things happen no one can fix.”
Taylor’s breath hitched. “Why didn’t I know he wasn’t”—she choked back a sob—“alive. I should have known, right? I could have fixed it sooner.”
“Don’t think like that,” he said. “And that’s not your fault. You couldn’t have done anything to prevent this.”
Tears streamed freely now, soaking into the pillow. He stayed where he was, speaking only when she needed it, letting the silence do the work when words would only wound.
He wouldn’t let his own tears fall.
He wouldn’t let her see him crack.
“Now what?” Taylor asked.
“Now we’re going to take care of you,” he added. “You’re safe. You survived something incredibly hard. We’ll get you help to get you through. Both of you.” He looked at Cora who was visibly shaken over the turn of events.
None of them in this room signed up for this.
He stepped out into the hall, stripping off the gown and gloves as Taylor was wheeled away to recovery. The weight of the night clung to him, heavy and unshakable.
Nothing he ever wanted to go through in his life again, but it never seemed to land that way.
Gabriela was there the moment he looked up.
“Hey,” she said softly. “Come here.”
He didn’t argue. Didn’t pretend. He let her pull him in, let her arms wrap tight around him. He wouldn’t admit how badly he needed it. How deeply the night had cracked something open inside him.
How he should have known better than to let himself walk this road again.
How he’d once promised himself that wanting more only led to heartbreak.
How he’d told himself for years that what he had with Zoe had been enough, and that asking for anything beyond it was a mistake.
“I’m okay,” he said, the words automatic. A complete lie she saw right through.
Her hold tightened. He felt her shake with him. Felt the moisture on his chest from the tears she was shedding. “No, you’re not,” she said quietly. “And you’re allowed not to be.”
“Gabriela,” he said, pulling back just enough to look at her. To see the tears in her eyes also. His were filling now. There was no way to stop it. “It wasn’t my child. I didn’t let myself get attached. I knew there was a chance it wouldn’t work out. I just didn’t think it would end like this.”
She lifted a hand to his chest, right over his heart.
“Don’t do that,” she said. “Don’t pack this away and pretend it doesn’t hurt.
” He stilled. “He wasn’t your child,” she continued gently.
“But part of you believed he could have been. And losing that possibility—losing that hope—is its own kind of grief.”
His throat closed. Because that was it.
Not the baby. Not the outcome.
The hope.
And standing there in her arms, he finally let himself feel the weight of losing it.
He finally let the tears fall as if it was him who went through this ordeal and not the sixteen-year-old blaming herself.
She held him while he cried. While they cried together.
It shouldn’t feel as if he were losing a part of himself again, but it did.
She pulled him out of the hallway and to an empty room. “You should go home and get some sleep,” he said. Anything to make this night end.
“I’m fine,” she said.
“Gabriela. It’s past midnight. You have to get up in a few hours.”
“All things considered, I think I’m allowed to come in a little late tomorrow. I’m going to check on the patients in the ward and then we can go home together. You shouldn’t be alone.”
“I want to be alone,” he said flatly.
The way she recoiled back looked like she’d been slapped.
Shock for sure.
Then hurt followed.
He didn’t need that on top of everything else. But he had to be honest too.
“You shouldn’t be.”
“Gabriela. I know you mean well. But trust me. I know myself. I need to be alone. Please, give me the space.”
Her eyes filled again, but he wouldn’t change his mind.
It was better this way. He knew it and she would too, eventually.
Going home with him would only keep them both up. That didn’t serve any purpose.
She nodded, gave him a kiss on the cheek, one more hug and then made her way to the pediatric ward.
There was one more thing he had to do before he left. The right thing to do. And he didn’t want Gabriela around when it was done.