Chapter 8
Ethan arrived wet from the rain, carrying no briefcase and no speech.
He stopped at the doorway of my hospital room. “Can I come in?”
“Yes.”
Mom made room beside the bed. Ethan took my hand only after I reached for his.
The hours that followed were harder than I had imagined. Sometimes I wanted Mom. Sometimes I wanted everyone to stop talking. Ethan brought ice chips, called the nurse when I asked, and stayed where I could see him.
Once, between contractions, I caught him looking at me with tears in his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Help me through this part,” I answered.
He nodded. “I’m here.”
Our daughter was born just after dawn.
The nurse laid her against my chest. She gave one indignant cry, then settled when I spoke. I touched her cheek with a finger and forgot the room around us.
“Hello, Mae,” I whispered.
Mom cried behind me. Ethan pressed his lips together, trying to hold himself steady.
We had chosen the name months earlier, before everything changed. I had kept it because it still belonged to her.
After the nurse checked Mae, Ethan held her with both arms. He looked terrified of moving.
“She’s so small,” he said.
“She’s strong.”
He glanced at me. “Like you.”
I was too tired to answer. I closed my eyes while Mom sat nearby and watched them both.
Later, when the room grew quiet, Ethan asked whether I still wanted the separation. He seemed ashamed of asking at all.
“Yes,” I said.
He nodded. “I won’t bring it up here again.”
I watched him place Mae carefully in her bassinet. “You can love her without knowing what happens to us.”
“I do love her.”
“I can see that.”
For the next two days, he visited during the hours we had agreed. He learned to change her diaper. He asked the nurses questions. He did not tell me how to feed her or try to make our daughter’s birth into a promise that I would come back.
When Mom brought us home to the apartment, Ethan carried the bags upstairs. He set them beside the door and waited.
“Can I see her tomorrow?” he asked.
“Call in the morning. We’ll make a plan.”
He smiled at Mae. “Good night, little one.”
The first weeks were a blur of feeding, sleep, and learning her cries. Mom came by every day. Some mornings I felt grateful and steady. On others, I cried because I could not find a clean shirt.
Ethan kept showing up at the times we agreed. He brought groceries when I asked. When Mae fussed, he walked slowly around the living room until she slept. He never asked me to praise him for doing what a father should do.
The trust repayment agreement was signed while Mae was six weeks old. Priya had checked the accounting with Daniel. Ethan repaid the missing distributions with interest and transferred the disputed investment’s value into the trust. He also paid the professional fees caused by the false statements.
I signed after reading every page.
The money went into an account I could see and manage with my own advisers. I planned to keep most of it for Mae’s future, just as Dad had intended for me and my children.
“Your father would be proud you asked questions,” Mom said when I told her it was done.
I looked at Mae asleep in my arms. “I wish I’d asked sooner.”
“You asked when you were ready to hear the answers.”
I did not know whether that was true, but I held on to the kindness in it.
A month later, Ethan asked if we could speak without lawyers. I agreed to meet him at a café near my apartment. Mom watched Mae.
Ethan had started counseling. He said the board’s decision had forced him to look at choices he had spent years justifying.
“I told myself I was protecting the company,” he said. “Then I started telling myself I was protecting you from worry. I liked being the one who knew everything. I don’t like saying that, but it’s true.”
I wrapped my hands around my cup.
“I needed a partner,” I said. “Not someone deciding what I could handle.”
“I know.”
“Vanessa wasn’t something you can explain with the company.”
“No. I chose to be with her. I hurt you.”
I appreciated the words. I had waited a long time for him to say them without adding a reason.
“I don’t know if I can be married to you again,” I told him.
“I understand.”
“I want us to keep being good parents to Mae.”
May you like
“I want that too.”
I left the café feeling sad and clear. Both feelings could live together. I had learned that much.
