7. Millie
CHAPTER SEVEN
MILLIE
I'm not ready to be a mother.
I'm in the middle of my concert season. I'm lying in a hospital bed with three broken ribs. The father of this baby is a man I've known for exactly one dinner, one sidewalk kiss, and one night I wasn't supposed to think about again. By every measure of logic and common sense, now is not the time.
I've thought about this. I thought about it the whole day while nurses checked my vitals and respiratory therapists made me blow into a plastic tube that I'm fairly certain was designed by someone who hates people.
I thought about it while a nurse adjusted my IV and asked cheerfully if I needed anything, and I wanted to write a time machine but didn't.
When Adeena called, I couldn't answer, because I didn't know how to type I'm pregnant to anyone yet.
And I thought about it at three in the morning, staring at the ceiling, counting the tiles, listening to the monitors, feeling this baby settle into me the way a diagnosis does—absolute and without permission.
I always figured I might not have this. When you grow up the way I did, you start quietly editing the future in your head. You learn to want less before anyone has to tell you no. I'd made a kind of peace with that, or at least I thought I had.
Meeting someone. Falling in love. Getting married.
Having kids. Those things are for people who can call out across a crowded room, whisper I love you in the dark, and sing lullabies.
I crossed them off one by one, not because I didn't want them but because wanting them felt like setting myself up for disappointment.
Easier to shrink the list. Easier to say I'm fine with this than to admit I was always hoping for more.
But the thought of something already starting inside me, something alive, something that would eventually have hands and a heartbeat and maybe, if the universe has any sense of humor at all, a voice.
I couldn't let it go.
I wasn't being brave. I wasn't making a statement. I just couldn't let it go.
I don't expect Joseph to stay. He said he'd support whatever I decided, and I believed him in the moment because his face was honest and his hand was steady around mine. But support and stay are different words.
Men say support when they mean they'll sign checks and show up on birthdays and feel decent about themselves for not vanishing completely.
I've watched enough friends go through this.
I know the math. I'd already run the numbers on raising this baby alone.
And the truth is, I don't care. At least I'd have a family.
Real family. Someone who would never look at my silence and wish I were different.
So when I turned my phone toward him with the words I want to keep the baby, I was bracing for a pause. The careful face. The "okay, we'll figure something out" that really means I need to go think about this for a long time and possibly forever.
I watched it happen. Something behind his ribs just... gave. His whole body shifted, shoulders dropping, spine loosening, like the sentence had weight and he'd just agreed to carry it. He read it again. Looked up at me. Nodded.
"Okay."
I waited for the rest. The but. The qualifier.
"Then we're doing this. Together."
I stared at him. I typed slowly.
Really?
"Yeah." He leaned back in the chair, then ran a hand over his face.
"I mean, I should be upfront. I have zero experience with babies.
Literally none. I once held my friend's newborn, and the baby immediately started screaming.
Her dad said I was holding her wrong. I said it was because babies can sense when someone doesn't know what they're doing.
Either way, she was not a fan of me. I was pretty hurt about it, not gonna lie. "
I smile. I can't help it.
"And I don't know what I'm doing with any of this." He gestured vaguely at me, at the room, at everything neither of us had a plan for. "But I'll try. I'll figure this out with you. I'm not going anywhere."
He looked at me then, and the joke fell away. He leaned forward and took my hand. His fingers closed around mine the way they had during the exam, and my whole body remembered.
"I'm going to be here, Millie. Every appointment. Every weird craving at two in the morning. Every time you need someone to hold the plastic tube while you yell at it. That's a promise."
I look at him. He barely knows me. We shared one dinner and one night, and now I'm handing him the rest of his life on a phone screen.
He's quick and easy to look at and smart enough to talk his way out of anything.
He could have said all the right words and walked out that door, and I would have understood.
But he's still sitting in that chair. He chose to stay.
I mouthed thank you. My eyes were wet, but I was done crying for the day. I'd hit my quota.
He squeezed my hand and smiled, and the distance between us quietly closed. Like we'd been standing on opposite ends of a bridge and just started walking toward each other without saying so.
A few days later, I'm finally allowed to leave.
My ribs still ache when I breathe too deep or move too fast, but the pneumothorax has resolved, and the pain is manageable on oral medication.
The nurse walks me through discharge paperwork, breathing exercises I need to do at home, follow-up appointments, medications that are safe during pregnancy.
I sign everything with a hand that's firmer than it was four days ago. Progress.
Joseph appears in the doorway just as I'm putting down the pen. He's in a jacket and jeans—off shift, out of scrubs—and it's disorienting seeing him in civilian clothes inside this building, like running into a teacher at the grocery store. He looks different. Softer, somehow. Less contained.
He picks up my discharge paperwork and scans the medication list before I can stop him. I let him. There are worse things than having a surgeon review your discharge plan.
"How are you feeling about going home?"
I type. Ready. If I have to eat hospital food one more time, I'm filing a complaint.
He grins. "Tell me about it. I filed a complaint years ago, and no one listened."
He pauses. "Do you live with anyone?"
I shake my head.
The warmth in his face narrows into something more deliberate. He hands my phone back, looks at his hands for a second, then back at me.
"I've been thinking," he says. "About your recovery. You live alone, and you're going to need help for the first couple of weeks. Just basic stuff. Reaching things. Groceries. And then there's the pregnancy, the appointments coming up."
He pauses, rubbing the back of his neck.
"So I was wondering if you'd want to stay at my place for a while. Just until you're healed up."
He sees the shock on my face and puts his hands up.
"And I know how this sounds. Trust me, I hear it. Guy you went on one date with asking you to move in. I'm aware that's insane energy. I promise I'm not that kind of crazy." He half smiles, but it fades quickly.
"I just keep thinking about you on those stairs, Millie. Alone. Not able to call anyone. And your apartment is a third-floor walk-up with no elevator, and those same stairs are the only way in and out, and I just..."
He stops and takes a breath.
"I'm worried about you. That's the truth. I'm worried about you being alone there while you're healing and pregnant, and I can't stop thinking about what would have happened if your neighbor hadn't seen you. How long you were lying there alone."
He looks at me, and he doesn't soften it.
"I have a spare room. It's furnished. It's clean. I'm not asking you to move in with me like that. I'm asking because I want to help and make sure you'll be okay. No pressure. Just an option."
I stare at him.
My brain runs through every reason to say no. I barely know him. We spent one evening together. One. And now he's asking me to move into his apartment. This is insane. This is the kind of decision that gets entire audiences yelling at a screen because who does this in real life?
But then I think about what he said. About the landing that almost killed me. About my narrow kitchen, the long flights of stairs, the silence of recovering alone, and pulling a jacket over broken ribs just to get to a doctor's appointment.
I type. Are you sure?
"Yes." No hesitation. Not even a blink.
Then I remember. I type I need Tofu with me
He blinks. "Tofu? Is this something you've always liked or are your pregnancy cravings already starting? I mean, I don't mind, we can buy some on our way—"
I'm already waving both hands at him, shaking my head, laughing even though it pulls at my ribs. I type fast.
No. Tofu is my cat. I hope that's okay.
He reads it, and his mouth opens, closes, then opens again. "You named your cat Tofu?"
I nod.
"That's the greatest name I've ever heard. Yes, Tofu can come. Tofu is absolutely welcome. I'll pick up cat food on the way home." He pauses. "The spare room has a door that locks. If you ever need to disappear, you can."
That detail. The fact that he thought about that, that what I might need most in a shared space is the option to disappear inside it.
I type. Okay.
He exhales. Long and slow, like he's been holding it in for days. I don't think he knew it was there.
Joseph picks me up the next day. He insists on carrying everything.
My bag, Tofu's carrier, Tofu's food, and the little bed she sleeps in by my window.
I'm holding my violin case because I won't let anyone else carry it.
The latch is still dented from the fall, and I haven't opened it yet because I'm not ready to see what's inside.
Joseph crouches down to look at Tofu through the mesh of the carrier. She's sitting upright inside with her one blue eye fixed on him like she's conducting a job interview.
"So this is the famous Tofu." He holds out his hand near the mesh. She sniffs it through the fabric and turns away. "Tough crowd."
I type. She'll warm up. Give her a day.
"A day? Most people warm up to me in under a minute."
She's a sassy cat.
"I can see that. But you'll warm up to me, I'm sure of it," he tells her.
Tofu is actually half deaf. Fun fact. White cats with one blue eye are often deaf on the same side as the blue eye. About 40% of them are born that way. So Tofu can't hear on her left side.
He reads it. Something shifts behind his eyes.
"So you have a cat who can't hear on one side, and you can't speak." He looks at me, a soft expression on his face. "You two were made for each other."
I smile. He doesn't know how right he is. When her original owners found out she was half deaf, they surrendered her to the shelter. I read the description on the adoption page, and I knew. I just knew. She was mine before I ever met her.
The car ride is quiet, and it sits easy between us, two people carrying four days of weight with no idea which piece to pick up first. Tofu meows once from the back seat, a tiny, indignant sound, and Joseph glances in the rearview mirror.
"Is she okay?"
I type. She hates cars. She'll complain the whole way.
"Fair enough. I respect a woman who voices her displeasure."
I look at him. He catches it and winces. "That was not intentional. I swear."
I type. Sure it wasn't.
"It really wasn't. I'm sorry. That was terrible."
It was a little funny.
"Was it? Because I can do more accidental insensitivity if it's working for you."
I shake my head, but I'm smiling. He's trying. He's trying so hard to make this feel normal, and the effort itself is what makes it work.
He drives us to his apartment. He takes my bag at the door, and I step inside and actually look this time.
The last time I was here, I wasn't exactly paying attention to the decor.
His apartment is bigger than I expected, open plan, high ceilings.
He's a surgeon, so the square footage makes sense, but it doesn't feel like a rich bachelor's place.
It feels lived in. Warm wood accents, neutral tones, a dark leather couch that looks like it's been broken in properly.
There's art on the walls, real pieces, not the generic prints you buy to fill space.
A bookshelf that's actually full—medical texts losing a shelf to paperbacks and a worn travel guide to Spain.
A coffee mug abandoned on the windowsill.
A pair of running shoes kicked off by the door, one upright, one on its side.
A cluster of houseplants crowded on the sill above the sink, one of them browning at the edges—something he clearly meant to tend better than he has.
It should feel too big for one person, but it doesn't.
It just feels like him.
He shows me the spare room. Clean, simple. A bed, a dresser, a window that gets afternoon light. He's put a towel set on the bed, folded neatly, and there's a glass of water on the nightstand that he clearly placed there before picking me up. I noticed that. The water. The care behind it.
I set Tofu's carrier down and open it. She steps out carefully, sniffs the floor, then the bed, then Joseph's shoes. He crouches and holds his hand out again. She considers him for a long moment. Then she bumps her head against his knuckles.
"We're friends now," he says.
That was fast. I thought she needed a day.
"What can I say? The Liu charm is universal."
He leaves me to settle in. I hear him in the kitchen, opening cabinets, running water.
Giving me space without performing it. I sit on the edge of the bed.
The mattress is firm and comfortable. The sheets are clean.
The light comes through the window warm and gold, pooling on the floorboards and the foot of the bed, and the room goes honey-colored around me. For a minute, I just sit in it.
Tofu jumps onto the bed and curls up beside me. I scratch behind her good ear, and she purrs. At least one of us is adjusting quickly.
I stand in the doorway of the spare room. Eight weeks ago, I came through that front door after one date, because I wanted a night where I wasn't the girl who lost First Chair. I wanted one night where I felt different. Just one.
And now I'm back. With broken ribs and a baby. In the apartment of a man I thought I'd never see again.
One night. That's all it was supposed to be.