Chapter 3: What the Letter Said

I read the first line three times before my eyes would move to the next one.

The hallway was empty except for the doctor, who had stepped back to give me space.

A cart rolled past somewhere around the corner.

A phone rang at the nurses’ station and was answered before the second ring.

Everything around me was continuing normally, and I was standing completely still.

I made myself read.

—

*By the time you read this, you’ll have already given someone a part of me.

I need you to know there’s something else I left behind — something I should have told you long before now.*

*Her name is Diane.

We were together for two years before I met you.

We ended things the right way — or I thought we did.

Eight months after we separated, she called to tell me she was pregnant.

She said the baby was mine.*

*I didn’t handle it well.

I was scared.

I told myself she had moved on, that she had people around her, that maybe I was wrong about the timing.