Chapter 9 - THE BABY CAME EARLYStress has consequences.
Three weeks after the party, I went into premature labor.
Thirty-four weeks.
I was terrified.
My son, Samuel, arrived small but breathing.
Four pounds, eleven ounces.
NICU.
Monitors.
Tiny fingers.
Julian stood outside the room.
We were separated by then.
He had no right to walk into my recovery space without permission.
But he was Samuel’s father.
That complicated everything.
I let him see the baby.
He stood beside the incubator.
Cried.
Then whispered:
“I almost lost him.”
I looked at him.
Not:
We.
He corrected himself.
“We almost lost him.”
I appreciated that.
Then:
“Because of me.”
Not entirely.
But his choices opened the door to Chloe.
His silence about problems with Diane allowed family dysfunction to grow.
He did not plan the shove.
He did create part of the environment around it.
He understood that now.
Samuel spent nineteen days in the NICU.
Then came home.
Not to the house Julian and I had shared.
To my mother’s guesthouse.
Quiet.
May you like
Safe.
Mine.
