Chapter 2 - The Hallway Calculation
The hallway outside Trauma Three was noisy, but to me, it felt like a vacuum.
After the transport team wheeled Sophie down the wide corridor toward the radiology suite, I stepped out of the room to pull her preliminary blood work from the pneumatic tube system.
I heard his heavy footsteps behind me before he even spoke.
"Adelaide. Stop. Please."
I pulled the plastic tube from the wall station, unclipped the lab slips, and kept walking toward the central nursing station. I didn't turn around.
"Dr. Brooks," he said, changing his approach, his voice tight with desperation. "I need to speak with you. Just five minutes."
I stopped beside a mobile computer cart, typing in my access code to pull up Sophie's chart.
"Mr. Hart," I said without looking at him. "Your daughter is currently in radiology. My job right now is to ensure her bone is properly aligned and that she doesn't have a concussion. If you have questions about her treatment plan, I am happy to answer them."
Elias stepped into my line of sight. Up close, he looked exhausted. Dark shadows hung beneath his eyes, and the sharp lines of his face seemed harder than I remembered.
His eyes dropped immediately to my stomach. Under the harsh white LED lights of the corridor, there was no hiding the round curve of my belly.
"How far along are you?" he asked. His voice was raw, stripped of all his usual legal polish.
I could have lied. I could have told him it was none of his business, or given him a vague answer about due dates. But I had spent six months rebuilding my dignity after walking away from his apartment. I wasn't going to hide behind a lie.
"Thirty-one weeks," I said, meeting his gaze directly.
I watched him process the words.
Thirty-one weeks. That meant conception had occurred in mid-November.
Six months ago was December.
The math hit him like a physical blow. Elias swayed slightly on his feet, his jaw working as his mind raced back through every night we had shared, every conversation we had avoided, and the exact date I had packed my bags and left.
"Is the baby mine?" he asked, the words forced out through a constricted throat.
My hand moved instinctively to rest over my stomach. Beneath my palm, my child shifted gently.
I looked Elias straight in the eyes. The hallway around us seemed to vanish—the busy nurses, the ringing phones, the distant beep of heart monitors all faded away.
I didn't answer him.
"Adelaide, please," he rasped, taking a single step closer. "Look at me. Answer me. Is this my child?"
"Dr. Brooks?" Nurse Sarah called out from the door of Room Four. "Sophie is back from X-ray. She's asking for you. She says her arm feels heavy."
"I'll be right there, Sarah," I replied, my voice steady and firm.
I turned back to Elias. "Your daughter needs her doctor, Mr. Hart. And right now, that is the only role I play in your life."
I walked past him into Room Four before he could say another word.
Sophie was lying on the examination bed, her left arm resting on a blue pillow. She looked small against the white hospital sheets, but her face relaxed the moment I stepped into the room.
"Dr. Adelaide!" she said, pointing to the viewbox on the wall. "Are those my bones?"
"They certainly are," I said, pulling up her digital X-rays on the wall screen. "See right here? There's a tiny little crack in your wrist bone. It's called a buckle fracture. It means your bone bent a little bit, like a green stick from a tree."
"Does it mean I need a cast?"
"It means you get a very special waterproof splint," I told her, leaning over the bed to gently feel her pulse at her fingertips. "And you get to pick whatever color you want."
Elias walked into the room silently, stopping near the foot of the bed. He looked between me and his daughter, his expression torn between paternal concern and a terrifying, unspoken question.
Sophie looked at her father, then turned her head to look at me.
Her eyes settled on my round stomach, then drifted to her dad's pale face. Children have a strange, quiet intuition—they absorb the tension in a room long before they understand the reason for it.
"Daddy," Sophie said softly, her small voice cutting through the heavy air. "Is the baby in the pretty doctor's tummy my little brother?"
The room fell completely silent.
May you like
The hum of the fluorescent lights seemed to grow deafeningly loud. Elias stood paralyzed, staring at me as if his entire world had just collapsed beneath his feet.
And for the first time in six months, I saw the absolute terror in his eyes.
