Chapter 2

I did not go back to the table.

I grabbed my coat and car keys and drove to the nearest hospital.

Most clinics were closed for the holiday, but the small cafeteria near the emergency department was still open.

I bought a bowl of plain oatmeal.

The pressure in my chest would not ease, so I went to the triage desk and told the nurse I was being followed as a high-risk pregnancy.

She checked my blood pressure.

Even after I rested and they repeated it, the number was still too high.

The nurse called obstetrics.

I was taken back for monitoring and asked about headaches, vision changes, and fetal movement.

Only after the doctor reviewed everything did they let me eat in the observation area.

While I waited for the results, Reed sent three messages.

The first asked where I kept the carving knife.

The second said everyone was already sitting down.

The third read:

Are you coming back or not?

I did not tell him I was at the hospital.

I had told him at my twenty-week anatomy scan.

That morning, Maren's car had broken down near the highway exit.

Reed dropped me at the clinic and promised he would take her home, then come straight back.

He missed the entire appointment.

That was the scan where my doctor noticed that my blood pressure had been repeatedly elevated and referred me for high-risk monitoring.

She spoke slowly and made sure I understood the warning signs, the diet changes, and what I needed to tell the baby's father.

I sent Reed the results.

Forty minutes later, he replied with a heart emoji and asked whether the ultrasound pictures had turned out clearly.

That night, while I tried to explain my new dietary restrictions, his phone kept lighting up.

Maren wanted to know whether the towing company had overcharged her.

Halfway through my explanation, Reed looked up and said, "Just do whatever the doctor told you to do."

After that, he never once asked to see my blood pressure log.

By the time I got home on Thanksgiving, it was almost nine.

The guests were gone. The twins were upstairs. Maren had left too.

Reed was sitting in the living room watching a game, with the leftover pie on the coffee table.

"Where did you go?"

"The hospital."

He finally paused the television.

"The hospital? Why didn't you call me?"

"The nurse made me stay until my blood pressure came down."

"And now?"

"The third reading was lower."

He exhaled in relief.

"Good. You disappeared in the middle of dinner. Everyone kept asking where you were."

I washed the blue-lidded container and set it in the drying rack.

Reed followed me into the kitchen.

"Maren apologized," he said. "Don't turn the food thing into an argument about the door code."

"Tomorrow, change her access to a temporary code."

"Do we really need to make this complicated? She only comes in to pick things up."

"I'm talking about from now on. If she comes into this house, I want to know first."

Reed dragged a hand down his face like I was deliberately making a simple situation difficult.

"What exactly are you afraid of?" he asked. "If she wanted to get back together with me, why would she have divorced me six years ago?"

It was the same thing Maren had been saying for months.

Now the words were coming from my husband.

A little after one in the morning, my phone vibrating against the nightstand woke me.

Reed was not in bed.

The bedroom door stood slightly open, and light from the kitchen spilled into the hallway.

I walked to the top of the stairs.

He was sitting at the kitchen table with earbuds in, laughing softly.

On his phone was an old video from the night the twins were born.

A much younger Maren held two swaddled babies while Reed leaned down behind her and kissed her hair.

"You still have this on your phone?" he said to whoever was on the other end.

I could not hear Maren's answer.

Reed laughed again, quieter this time.

"Of course I remember. We stayed up all night just staring at them."

I stood on the stairs with one hand resting over my belly.

This was my first pregnancy.

I was high-risk.

My husband did not even know what my doctor had told me.

Yet at one in the morning, he was reliving the night he and his ex-wife had first become parents together.

I did not go downstairs.

Back in the bedroom, I opened the smart-lock app.

Maren had not been given a temporary guest code.

Reed had added her as a household member.

No expiration date.

No time restrictions.

The access had been granted at 4:02 p.m.

At that exact time, Reed had been in the kitchen helping me label the meal I was supposed to eat.