9. Christine #2
I hesitate. Everything protective in me flares - this is my daughter, my baby, the one person in the world who needs me more than she needs anyone else. He’s barely held her. Those rushed minutes at the hospital don’t count - not really. Not when he arrived too late for everything that mattered.
But Isabella is still crying. And I’m so tired. And-
“Sit down first.” I nod toward the armchair. “Support her head.”
He sits like the chair is made of glass.
Holds out his arms with exaggerated care, as if he’s afraid he’ll break something.
I transfer Isabella slowly, adjusting his grip, showing him how to cradle her properly - the way he should have learned beside me in a hospital room that echoed with his absence.
The crying stops.
Isabella blinks up at her father with unfocused newborn eyes. Makes a small sound - not a cry, something softer. Curious, maybe. Still learning who this person is.
Benedict makes a sound like he’s been gutted.
“She’s so small.” His voice is barely audible. “She’s so… God, Christine, she’s perfect. She’s-”
He looks up at me, and there are tears streaming down his face. Benedict Morgan, who built an empire on emotional control, who can stare down senators without flinching, is openly weeping in my mother’s living room.
“She has your nose.”
“I know.”
“And my chin. That stubborn little-” A broken laugh escapes him. “She’s going to be trouble.”
“She already is. She won’t sleep more than two hours at a stretch.”
“I’m sorry.” He’s not talking about the sleep. We both know he’s not talking about the sleep. “I’m so sorry. I should have been there. I should have-”
He presses his forehead to Isabella’s, breathing her in, and something twists in my chest that I refuse to identify.
“I missed it. I missed her first breath. Her first cry. I wasn’t there to cut the cord, to hold your hand, to tell you-”
“Don’t.”
He looks up.
My arms are crossed. My jaw is tight. Whatever softness I felt watching him hold our daughter is hardening into something sharper, something that will protect me from the devastation of letting him back in.
“You don’t get to come here and cry and say you’re sorry and make this about your pain.
I was alone, Benedict. Alone. In a hospital that wouldn’t give me the suite we’d booked because you weren’t there to authorize it.
Laboring in a room with a woman whose husband held her hand through every contraction while I had no one. ”
“Christine-”
“I screamed for twelve hours. Did you know that? Twelve hours. And every time I tried to call you, it went to voicemail. Every time I texted, nothing. I thought-”
My voice cracks. I hate that it cracks. I want to be ice, want to be stone, want to be anything other than this bleeding, broken thing standing in front of him.
“I thought maybe you were dead. I thought maybe the plane crashed and that’s why you weren’t answering. Because the alternative was that you just… didn’t care enough. Or that you were with her.”
“I wasn’t-”
“You were with her the whole time, letting her pose you for a picture. While I was being stitched up. While I was holding our daughter for the first time, alone. A nurse offered to take a photograph for the father.” I laugh, and it sounds horrible even to me. “I opened Instagram instead.”
“And there you were. At a restaurant. With her. Smiling. Celebrating. While I was hemorrhaging and wondering if I was going to die without ever seeing you again.”
Benedict’s face has gone gray. “That photo - Pauline asked for a press shot. I didn’t know she’d post it like that-”
“You had time for a photo but not a phone call?”
“I didn’t know you were in labor!”
“Because you weren’t reachable!” The word tears out of me, and Isabella startles in his arms. I force myself to breathe, to lower my voice.
“You’re Benedict Morgan. You run a Fortune 500 company.
You have people whose entire job is to reach you in emergencies.
And somehow - somehow - not a single one of them thought to mention that your wife was in labor? ”
He’s silent.
Because we both know the answer. We both know who was handling his communications, who would have seen my calls, who had every reason in the world to keep him in the dark.
“Pauline.” His voice is rough. “She was handling my communications. She said - she told me you were resting. That you’d asked not to be disturbed.”
“And you believed her.”
“I-”
“You believed the woman who’s been circling our marriage like a vulture for two years, over me. Over your own instincts. Over-”
My voice breaks again. I press my hand to my mouth until I can continue.
“You didn’t even call to check. You took her word for it and you went to dinner.” I have to stop. Start again. “And then you had someone send me a message saying you were aware. That you’d call when you could. That I should rest.”
Benedict goes very still.
“I never sent that.”
“Your assistant sent it.”
“I never told her to.” Something is moving behind his eyes now, fast and terrible, like a man watching a building come down. “Christine. I never told anyone to send you that.”
Isabella starts fussing. The tension in the room, the raised voices - she can feel it, this tiny creature who’s barely been alive long enough to understand anything except that something is very wrong.
Benedict looks down at our daughter. Then back at me.
“You’re right.” His voice is quiet. Defeated. “You’re right about all of it. I believed her because it was easier. Because I was exhausted and overwhelmed and she made everything easy, and I didn’t want to deal with how hard things had gotten between us.”
He swallows hard.
“That’s not an excuse. There is no excuse. I failed you in every way a husband can fail.”
“Yes. You did.”
“I didn’t sleep with her.”
The words hang in the air between us.
“Christine. I didn’t. I was never with her. Never touched her. Never wanted her.”
I want to believe him so badly it physically hurts - a pressure in my chest, a burning behind my eyes.
“I want that to be true.” My voice comes out smaller than I intended. “Six months ago, I would have laughed at anyone who suggested it. I would have been offended on your behalf.”
“And now?”
“Now I don’t know what to believe anymore.” The admission costs me something. “And I don’t care what you did or didn’t do with her.”
It’s a lie. We both know it’s a lie.
“I care that you let it happen. I care that you put work above me so consistently that another woman had more access to you than your own wife. I care that I gave birth to your child alone because you couldn’t be bothered to keep your phone charged or check on me or-”
I press my hand to my mouth again. The tears are coming, and I refuse to let him see them.