He was right.
My meeting had already begun without me. My patients still needed me. My life outside this room still existed, even if it now felt like it belonged to someone else.
I looked at Elliot one more time.
He slept with one fist tucked beneath his chin.
A year old.
Born after my marriage ended, but possibly created before it did.
My child, perhaps.
Not mine, perhaps.
Both possibilities hurt.
“I won’t make decisions in a hospital room,” I said. “And I won’t make them out of anger.”
Connor’s eyes narrowed. “How noble.”
“No,” I said. “Careful.”
That silenced him.
Kenneth placed a business card on the table in front of Melinda. “Send the emails to this address. Do not forward them from Connor’s devices. Do not alter them. Do not discuss them over text with him.”
Melinda nodded.
Connor picked up the card and flicked it back onto the table. “She isn’t sending you anything.”
Melinda picked it up.
“Yes,” she said. “I am.”
For a moment, I saw the entire balance of their marriage shift. Connor saw it too, and that was why his face changed. It was not the legal folder that frightened him most. It was not Kenneth or the temporary order or even the word forged.
It was losing control of the story.
He had survived by being the narrator.
Now someone else was speaking.
I opened the door.
The hallway seemed too bright.
I stepped out first, then Kenneth. Behind us, Melinda pushed the stroller silently, Elliot awake now and blinking at the ceiling lights. Connor followed last, his phone already in his hand.
At the elevator, Kenneth touched my elbow gently.
“Are you all right?”
“No.”
He nodded. “That’s a reasonable answer.”
I looked down the pediatric corridor, at the nurses’ station where my colleagues were pretending not to watch too obviously.
“I need ten minutes,” I said. “Then I’ll go back to work.”
“Kirsten.”
I met his eyes.
“You don’t have to prove you’re strong by pretending this didn’t happen.”
The words nearly undid me.
Because that was exactly what I had been about to do.
Chart notes. Staff meeting. Patient rounds. Smile. Wash hands. Keep moving.
I had built survival out of competence. It had worked, mostly.
