I sat down at the back of the ambulance.
The bumper was cold through my uniform pants. My elbows went to my knees. My hands hung between them. The bay was bright and smelled like exhaust and disinfectant. The late-afternoon sun was coming in at an angle through the bay doors. I sat in it without feeling it.
The crew was doing the post-call work around me. Halsey at the rig, checking something. Lou on the radio, the flat voice giving dispatch the clear. Micah restocking the jump bag ten feet to my left, glancing at me once and looking away.
Her face through the window. The baby in my hands. The small nod in the ambulance. The nine months I spent taking the bypass home because I couldn't drive past her hospital. The morning on Main Street when I saw her pregnant and toldmyself she had met someone else. The relief I pretended to feel, and the loss underneath the relief that I pretended I didn't.
Nine months.
She carried my daughter for nine months and didn't tell me. She worked her shifts. She drove herself to the hospital. She pulled over on the shoulder of Route 9, three days past her due date, alone in a sedan, and called 911 instead of calling me. I was ten minutes away. I wasalwaysten minutes away. I lived in the same town, worked in the same area she came to every day, and she chose the dispatcher over my number.
Across the bay, Easton was talking to Cap by the engine. I could see them but not hear them. Easton's posture was the one he used when he was delivering information that mattered, straight-backed, hands at his sides. Hank listened with one hand on the side panel, his face still, the mustache and the decades doing the work that younger men did with expressions.
At one point, Hank looked past Easton's shoulder at me. I looked at the concrete between my boots.
Easton came to the ambulance. He sat down beside me on the bumper.
"Talked to Cap," he said. "You're done for the rest of the shift. We'll cover."
I nodded. I didn't trust my voice.
We sat for a beat. The late-afternoon light was going yellow on the bay floor, and the engine was ticking as it cooled. The hospital at my back was holding a woman and a baby I couldn't yet figure out how to walk toward.
"Did you know?" I said.
Easton looked at me, his face steady.
"No." Quiet. "Astrid never told me who the father was. I always figured it was someone Audrey met recently."
The line landed, and I heard everything inside it. Astrid knew. Had known since the beginning, and kept the secret because Audrey asked her to.
Audrey held this alone. Completely, deliberately alone.
"Thank you," I said.
The thank-you was for more than the answer. It was for the bumper. For the shift coverage. For a man who sat beside me without making me perform a single thing I wasn’t ready to perform. Easton knew what the thank-you held. He didn't make me say more.
I stood up.
Hank was still by the engine. I got to him and didn't know what to say.
He put his hand on my shoulder. Solid. Heavy.
"Go in," he said.
I nodded and turned toward the hospital.
CHAPTER 9
Audrey
"Audrey. Oh my God. Are you okay? Easton just called me."
"I'm okay," I said. "We're both okay. She's here, Astrid."
"She's here." Astrid's voice went thick. "Oh my God, Aud."
"She's perfect. She's sleeping right next to me."
