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"She's here," the nurse said, laughing. "Would you like to see her?"
Dumbly, he nodded and followed her along the hallway to a window blocked with drawn blinds. "Wait here and I'll bring her over." She was about to enter the nursery when he said, "Wait. Where's Caroline?"
"Room four eighteen."
"Is she okay?"
"She had a short labor and easy delivery. I'm sorry you didn't make it in time."
He'd been tupping Crystal when Caroline's water broke, when she went into labor, when she had to carry her carefully packed suitcase to the car and drive herself to the hospital, when she'd given birth to their daughter.
His breath hitched until he was actually gasping. He couldn't imagine self-loathing more wretched than what he felt for himself. He stood staring at the slats in the blinds until they were opened, and there stood the nurse on the other side of the window, holding up the tiniest human being he'd ever seen.
Her face was red, her nose was flat, her eyes puffy. She was wrapped up like a papoose. A pink knit cap was on her head. The nurse removed it so he could see the red peach fuzz covering her scalp. Her pulse was beating in the soft spot on the top of her head.
Tears came to his eyes, and, if he'd found it difficult to breathe before, it was impossible to do so now.
He gave the nurse a thumbs-up and mouthed Thank you through the glass, then he turned away and went in search of room 418. When he reached it, he smoothed back his hair and dragged both hands down his face. He took a deep breath.
The door was heavy. He opened it only partially before slipping into the room. The light above the bed was on, a mere glow, but enough to see by. Caroline was lying on her back, her face turned away from the door. Her tummy was flat, and that looked strange now. When she heard the soft swish of the door, she turned her head toward it.
She looked at him with full knowledge of his transgression.
He made the long walk to her bedside. He, always the smooth talker, didn't know what to say. Words failed him completely.
She was the first to speak. "When you didn't come home, and I didn't hear from you, I called the police department. I told the man I spoke to that it was an emergency, that I needed to reach you right away. Since you're on a special task force, working undercover, he told me he would try to get word to you to call me.
"But you didn't. So I called a second time, more frantic than when I'd called before. The man said he'd been unable to reach you but told me that, if it was any comfort, you hadn't been reported killed or wounded in the line of duty."
Both her voice and her eyes were expressionless. "You slept with her, didn't you? To catch your crook, you had sex with his girlfriend."
He would have preferred screamed invectives and tears. He wished she would reach up and slap him. That kind of fury he was prepared to handle. This controlled rage terrified him.
He opened his mouth to speak but still couldn't think of anything to say. He didn't even consider denying it. He wouldn't heap lying onto his betrayal, adding insult to her wound, and, in any case, it would be futile.
"I want you out of the house before I bring the baby home."
Panic shot through him. "Caroline--"
"I mean it. I want you gone. Out of our lives. Hers, mine. You're to have nothing to do with either of us. Ever again, Dodge."
"You can't--"
"Yes I can. I am."
"I--"
"You ruined it."
"I did something stupid."
"Label it any way you like. You abused me worse than Roger Campton ever did."
Those words were like a lance straight through his heart. "How can you say that?"
"How could you do it?" Her voice cracked, and that was telling. "How could you do it?" she asked again, emphasizing each word.
He was asking himself the same thing. He could offer her no excuse, because there was none.
