The door opened.
Quick footsteps approached.
A man entered, rubbed his hands with gel, exchanged a few words with the staff, then lowered his mask to speak clearly.
Chloe stopped breathing.
Ethan Chen stood at the foot of her bed.
Her ex-husband.
For a moment, she thought the pain had driven her mad.
She had seen him so often in her nightmares that it took her several seconds to accept that this face was real.
The same dark eyes, more sunken than before.
The same tense jaw.
The small scar under his chin, the one he had gotten in medical school after a nighttime assault and which he had downplayed for weeks so as not to worry her.
The same man who had kissed her in the snow, in the parking lot of a college cafe, promising her that their life would never be ordinary.
The same man who, three years later, had asked her for a divorce in their kitchen while she was icing her mother’s birthday cake.
“Chloe,” he breathed.
His name broke in her mouth.
Another contraction overwhelmed her before she could reply.
She screamed and crushed Linda’s hand.
The nurse winced, but didn’t pull away.
“Do you know each other?” she asked, her gaze shifting from Chloe to Ethan.
Chloe laughed a joyless laugh.
“We were married.
Until he decided his mother was hurting more than me because I dared to ask for boundaries.”
Ethan paled.
“Chloe, I…”
“Don’t do this.”
His voice trembled, but his eyes remained fixed on hers.
“Not now.
Bring my baby into the world.”
He looked down at her belly.
And she saw the exact moment the truth hit him.
His pupils barely moved.
Yet his face changed completely.
The dates aligned.
Their last
