And then he saw me.
“Well,” he said, at a volume chosen for the waiting area. “Look who it is.”
Four or five people looked up.
“Hello, Rhett.”
He looked disappointed that it came out level.
For eleven years that man ran on reactions. Tears, shouting, the silent treatment — anything he could put in his pocket and bring out later as proof that I was not well.
Medicine teaches you the opposite. You keep your hands still while a family comes apart in front of you.
He glanced at the badge. “Still working too much?”
I nearly laughed, because that accusation has outlived the marriage.
“I like my job.”
“Oh, I know you do.”
The corridor had gone quiet in the particular way corridors do.
And then he stepped round so that everybody could see the buggy, and delivered the line he had clearly been carrying about for a year.
“Leaving you was the best decision I ever made.”
Yvie said his name.
He carried on.
“A woman who can’t have children shouldn’t be surprised when a man finds one who can give him a proper family.”
A nurse stopped typing. A father put his cup down.
Six years of appointments went through me in about a second. Six years of thinking it was mine to carry and that grief had changed a man I loved.
