PART 2
The last page was thicker than the others.
At first, I thought it was just another receipt, another photograph, another sharp piece of Hannah’s perfect evidence. My hands were already trembling so badly that the paper rattled when I pulled it free.
Then I saw the hospital logo.
Baylor Medical Center.
My throat tightened.
It was a printed record from the night Grace was born.
Not the birth certificate.
Not a bill.
A visitor log.
My name appeared at the top. Trevor Mitchell. Father. Checked in at 7:12 p.m.
Below it was Hannah’s name.
And then Vanessa’s.
My blood turned cold.
I stared at the page, blinking, trying to make sense of what I was seeing.
Vanessa Reed. Visitor. Checked in at 9:43 p.m.
That was impossible.
Vanessa had never come to the hospital.
At least, that was what I had believed.
I remembered that night too clearly. Hannah had been in labor for nearly eighteen hours. She was exhausted, pale, gripping my hand so tightly I thought my fingers might break. When Grace finally arrived, tiny and red-faced and furious at the world, I cried like a man who still had a soul.
Then, after Hannah fell asleep, I stepped into the hallway.
I told myself I needed air.
In truth, I had checked my phone.
Vanessa had texted me six times.
“Are you still there?”
“Is she asleep?”
“I miss you.”
“Send me a picture of the baby.”
I hadn’t replied immediately. I was terrified and thrilled and ashamed all at once.
But I had eventually stepped outside the maternity ward and called her.
I remembered whispering, “I can’t talk long.”
I remembered Vanessa laughing softly and saying, “You sound like a daddy now.”
I remembered telling her I would see her soon.
What I did not remember was Vanessa walking into that hospital.
What I did not remember was Hannah knowing.
My eyes dropped to the bottom of the page.
Attached was a printed screenshot from the hospital security camera.
A grainy black-and-white image.
Vanessa standing in the corridor outside Hannah’s room.
And beside her…
Me.
My arm around her waist.
My mouth near her ear.
I dropped the paper like it had burned me.
“No,” I whispered.
But the truth doesn’t care whether you accept it.
It sits there anyway.
There was more.
Another photograph, clearer this time, taken from a different angle. Vanessa and I by the vending machines near the waiting area. Her hand resting on my chest. My body leaning toward hers.
And below that, a copy of a message I had sent her at 11:18 p.m.
“She’s asleep. Baby is healthy. I wish you were the one in that bed.”
I forgot how to breathe.
I read the sentence again.
Then again.
The words looked like they had been written by a stranger, some cruel, careless man wearing my face.
But they were mine.
I remembered sending them.
