Michael leaned closer.
“We can have other children someday.”
I stared at him.Other children.
As if the baby lying somewhere across the hallway had suddenly stopped being ours.
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Before I signed anything, I asked to see him one more time.
A nurse brought him into the room.
He was asleep, wrapped in a white blanket.
Tiny nose.
Tiny fingers.
Dark hair resting against his forehead.
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The nurse placed him in my arms.
The moment I touched him, he opened his eyes.
Then his tiny hand closed around my finger.
My whole body went still.
Something inside me was screaming not to let him go.
But Michael was standing by the door.
Shop Walking Shoes“Please,” he whispered. “We agreed.”
I didn’t remember agreeing to anything.
I remembered being terrified.
Somehow, a few minutes later, my signature was on the papers.
When I left the hospital, I was carrying the empty baby carrier Michael had brought with him.
He walked several steps ahead of me.
I couldn’t stop staring at that empty carrier.
We were almost at the parking lot when someone suddenly called my name.
“Emily!”
I turned around.
It was the nurse who had brought my baby to me earlier.
She was running toward us, breathing hard, holding a folded sheet of paper in one hand.
Michael’s face changed immediately.
“No,” he said.The nurse ignored him.
She stopped directly in front of me, tears filling her eyes.
Then she pressed the folded paper into my hand.
“Before you leave your son here,” she whispered, “you need to know what your husband asked us to keep from you.”
I looked at Michael.
And for the first time that morning…
I saw fear on his face.I looked down at the folded paper in my hand.
Michael immediately reached for it.
“Emily, don’t.”
That was the moment I knew the nurse had not chased me down over something insignificant.
I stepped back and unfolded the page.
It was a copy of a note from the hospital social worker.
Michael’s name was at the top.
Underneath were details from a conversation he had with them earlier that morning while I was sleeping.
He had told them that I had already decided I didn’t want our son.
He claimed I was too emotionally unstable to make decisions and asked them to move forward with a permanent placement as quickly as possible.
Permanent.
