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No, that wasn’t true. He was a good cardiologist.
Savannah’s words of praise replayed through his mind.
He began to slap cards down on the coffee table, one after another in neat rows.
She’d been telling him how she saw him and he tried to look at himself through her eyes. He was a fine cardiologist who had spent a lot of time honing his craft and trying to be the best he could be, pushing himself mentally. He did care about his patients. Every single one was someone’s family member, possibly some little boy’s only lifeline to affection.
Savannah’s other words of praise soared through his mind.
He didn’t know about how enviable his body was, or even how desirable, but he did enjoy pushing himself physically, too.
Taking in the stacks of cards in front of him, he began turning over the cards remainin
g in his hands in sets of three.
He’d made her laugh.
Thinking back over the year they’d been together, they’d laughed a lot. More than he had his entire life. More than he’d known he could laugh.
Even this past month, once they’d called their truce, he’d laughed, and so had she.
He’d been happy.
Guilt hit him. He didn’t deserve to be happy.
Not when he’d been the reason his parents had been so unhappy.
A memory of Savannah talking about their baby, of her palm resting protectively over her rounded belly, of the joy in her voice when she spoke of their child hit him.
That was what a baby should give to his or her parents.
A baby was a blessing, wasn’t that what Savannah had said?
Their baby was a blessing.
His parents hadn’t seen him that way. He tried to imagine the resentment, almost hatred he’d felt emanating off his father, the apathy he’d felt from his mother at times, and he tried to imagine feeling that way about his and Savannah’s baby.
He couldn’t.
He tried to imagine if he’d been at a different point in his life, if he’d been in school still, or maybe not even in school yet, and how he would have felt if he’d had to change his dreams because of a baby, and tried to let the way his father had felt wash over him.
It wouldn’t.
The stacks of alternating colored, numerically sequenced cards in front of him grew as he continued to slap them down.
He tried to imagine Savannah being so overcome by life and depression and whatever else his mother had been facing that she’d take her life.
He couldn’t.
Savannah was a strong woman. She would fiercely protect their child, and she’d love their child. No matter what.
She’d never dump the emotional load on their child that his parents had dumped on him.
She would be a good mother.
He’d been right when he’d told her that their child was lucky to have her.
He flipped over an ace and started a new stack as Savannah’s words dug into his mind.
