The question surprised everyone, including me.
Melinda looked down at the baby.
“Elliot,” she whispered.
Elliot.
A gentle name.
A name Connor would never have chosen on his own. He preferred names that sounded like surnames, names that belonged on office doors and engraved watches. I wondered if Melinda had fought for Elliot. I wondered if she had named him in some private act of softness, some attempt to make one decent choice inside a thousand wrong ones.
“Elliot,” I repeated.
The baby stirred, as if hearing himself.
My throat tightened.
Years ago, before everything went wrong, Connor and I had kept a list of baby names in the notes app on my phone. He had treated it like a joke at first, adding names of athletes and movie characters just to make me roll my eyes.
But I had added one name after a twelve-hour shift in pediatrics, after treating a little boy who gave me a sticker because he said doctors needed bravery too.
Elliot.
I had forgotten that.
No.
I had tried to forget that.
Connor was watching me too closely.
He remembered.
Of course he remembered.
The realization moved through me with quiet horror.
“You chose that name,” I said to Melinda.
She shook her head slowly.
My eyes moved to Connor.
For once, he could not hold my gaze.
“You named him Elliot,” I whispered.
Connor’s silence was enough.
Melinda looked between us, confused. “What?”
I pushed back from the table. “That was my name.”
“Kirsten,” Kenneth said gently.
“No.” I stood because sitting suddenly felt impossible. “That was the name I wanted. Years ago.”
Melinda’s face folded in pain.
“I didn’t know,” she said.
I believed her.
That was the worst part.
I believed her about that.
Connor had not only taken the embryos. He had taken the name too. A private piece of hope from a woman he claimed had never wanted a family badly enough.
He had built his new life out of stolen fragments and then brought it to my workplace like a trophy.
The room blurred.
I turned away, blinking hard.
Through the small window in the door, I could see the pediatric wing continuing around us. Nurses moved with purpose. Parents carried backpacks and juice boxes. A little girl in purple slippers shuffled past holding her father’s hand.
Life did not stop because yours cracked open.
