*She loves this baby already.
That’s the problem.*
She hadn’t been worried about the baby.
She had been worried about what I would do when I found out whose baby it actually was.
My phone lit up.
A call this time, not a text.
Penelope.
I let it ring.
Four times.
Five.
Then it stopped.
A moment later, a text: *Just checking you got home okay.
Dinner tomorrow?
I’ll cook.*
I read it twice.
Then I set the phone face-down on the passenger seat.
She didn’t know I’d been there.
She hadn’t heard me in the hallway.
As far as Penelope was concerned, I had gone home after my appointment, and everything was still on schedule.
I had one week before my due date.
I drove home.
My husband, Joel, was in the kitchen when I came through the door.
He looked up from the stove, read my face in about two seconds, and turned the burner off.
