I hadn’t slept properly in days. My body still hurt. I was still bleeding. And there she sat, blaming me for miscarrying our child as if I had done it to inconvenience her son.
Before I could respond, the front door opened again.
Ethan walked in carrying a grocery bag.
He stopped the second he saw me.
Then he saw his mother.
The room went completely silent.
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.
Denise spoke first.
“She’s upset because I told her the truth.”
Ethan slowly set the grocery bag on the counter.
“What truth?”
“That she ruined your birthday with all this drama.”
I watched his face change.
Not anger at me.
Not grief.
Fury.
The kind I had never seen before.
He turned toward his mother so slowly it actually frightened her.
“What did you just say to my wife?”
Denise scoffed lightly. “Oh please, Ethan, you’ve been miserable for days—”
“She lost our baby.”
His voice cracked so sharply that the entire room seemed to split with it.
“She almost died in that bathroom.”
Denise opened her mouth again, but Ethan cut her off.
“No. You don’t get to speak.”
I had never heard him talk to his mother that way before.
Ever.
“You know what she did while she was bleeding and terrified?” he continued. “She apologized to me. She apologized because she thought she failed me.”
Tears burned my eyes instantly.
“And while she was alone in a hospital bed,” he said, pointing toward me, “I was outside crying in my car because I didn’t know how to walk into that room without falling apart.”
Denise looked stunned.
Ethan stepped closer to the table.
“You owe my wife an apology. Then you’re leaving.”
“Ethan—”
“Now.”
For once, Denise had nothing to say.
She grabbed her purse and stood stiffly.
“I was only trying to—”
“No,” Ethan said quietly. “You were cruel.”
She looked at me then, perhaps expecting sympathy, but I had none left to give.
A moment later the front door closed behind her.
And suddenly the house was quiet.
Ethan looked at me, really looked at me, and all the anger disappeared from his face.
Only grief remained.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered.
Then he walked toward me carefully, like I might shatter.
And when he wrapped his arms around me, I finally let myself fall apart.
