A happy little family of three, picture-perfect and glowing. The sight burned behind my eyes like acid.
I clenched my fists so hard my fingernails dug crescents into my palms, the tips turning white before I could wrestle back a shred of composure.
Carina had just come out of surgery, and I'd only just been transferred to this hospital.
This wasn't the time or place to rip the veil off.
Once she'd recovered a bit of strength, her gaze drifted to me.
"Thank you so much, Doctor. I didn't catch your name?"
Behind the surgical cap and mask, Carina didn't recognize me.
I stared into her eyes, searching for even a flicker of guilt.
"Simmons. Dr. Simmons."
But Percy reclaimed her attention almost instantly, and she didn't spare me another glance.
I'd barely made it back to the on-call room when my phone buzzed in my pocket.
I swiped to answer. Carina's voice poured through the speaker.
"Donald, something urgent came up at the office. I probably won't be able to make it home for a while."
My chest was a furnace of rage and questions I wanted to hurl at her.
But the words piled up behind my teeth and died there. The devastation had hollowed me out so completely I couldn't even summon the will to speak.
She mistook my silence for sulking and kept talking, her tone shifting to something coaxing.
"Be good, okay? Once things settle down here, I promise I'll clear my schedule so we can finally take that honeymoon trip..."
"Carina..."
Before she could finish, Percy's voice calling her name and the wail of a newborn erupted on her end of the line, one after the other.
"I have to go!"
She fumbled to hang up.
Too much had happened in a single day.
The sheer absurdity of it all churned through my stomach, and I barely made it to the bathroom before I was doubled over the toilet, retching until the edges of my vision went dark.
Half-conscious, I managed to dial a number.
"Have the marriage certificate from the study cabinet sent to me."
"And tell my father that Carina's been having an affair. I want him to pull every cent of funding from her company. Effective immediately."
According to the schedule, the next round of patient checks was mine.
I forced myself upright and grabbed the chart.
Standing at the doorway, I looked through the glass. Carina and Percy were squeezed together on the narrow hospital bed.
She was curled into his arms, one hand patting his back in a slow, absent rhythm, dark circles bruised beneath her eyes from a sleepless night.
Even though every last thread of feeling had already been severed, the bitterness still rose in my throat, impossible to swallow back down.
My knock made Carina's eyes snap open.
I pulled my mask into place and pushed through the door.
It was a hospital room, but someone had made it warm. Homey, even.
The table overflowed with supplies for mother and baby, everything from nursing pillows to tiny socks, every size accounted for.
Every single item had come from my personal recommendations.
The night before I left for this transfer, Carina had shaken me awake in the middle of the night.
"Donald, you're an OB-GYN. Can you tell me everything someone needs to prepare for having a baby?"
I'd squinted at her, half-asleep and confused.
"Why are you asking about this all of a sudden?"
She stammered something about a coworker whose baby was almost due, said the woman had begged her to ask me.
I'd just come off a thirty-six-hour shift. My brain was barely functioning.
But then Carina sat up, flipped on every light in the apartment, and dragged me out of bed.
"Donald, write it all down. Now."
She shoved a pen into my hand, then pinched the soft skin on the inside of my arm and twisted. Hard.
The searing pain jolted me fully awake.
I worked on that list until dawn bled through the windows.
Before she left, Carina tucked it carefully into the inner pocket of her jacket, handling it like something precious. She turned and walked out without so much as a thank you.
