She had been asking whether he knew her from the most frightening period of her life.
Now they were sitting in the same room sharing fruit.
Life had become full of those strange contrasts.
Kindness beside suspicion.
Safety beside uncertainty.
Gratitude beside fear.
Nikki ate quietly.
Roland did not raise the subject of Ward 10 again.
Neither did she.
But the conversation had changed something inside her.
Before that day, the hospital had existed in her mind as a distant place she wanted to forget.
It belonged to the months she could not properly explain and to the pregnancy she desperately wished she understood.
Following Roland had brought it close again.
She had seen the building.
She had seen the corridors.
She had seen Ward 10.
And suddenly the past was no longer buried.
It was standing close enough to touch.
Later that night, Roland went to bed.
Nikki lay down too, but sleep did not come easily.
The room was dark and quiet, yet her mind kept moving.
Her husband’s face returned to her.
She remembered the anger and rejection.
To him, the situation had been simple.
His wife was pregnant.
He was not the father.
Therefore she had betrayed him.
Nikki had tried to explain that she did not know how it had happened.
She had tried to explain that the pregnancy began during the period connected to her hospitalization.
But what could she offer him besides her own confusion?
No name.
No witness.
No clear memory.
No answer.
She understood how impossible her story sounded.
But understanding his disbelief did not make being thrown out hurt less.
Nikki turned on the bed.
Her hand rested over her stomach.
The babies were innocent of every argument surrounding them.
That truth made what entered her mind next even harder.
She wanted her husband back.
She wanted her old home back.
She wanted to wake up and return to the life she had before the hospital, before Ward 10, before the pregnancy became the question hanging over everything.
She thought about Roland sleeping nearby.
He had told her to stay.
He had promised not to lie again.
He had denied knowing her from the hospital.
Perhaps he truly knew nothing.
If that was the case, then following him had not brought her any closer to discovering the father of her babies.
It had only shown her how badly she wanted an escape from the situation.
Nikki closed her eyes.
One possibility had been circling her mind, frightening her each time it returned.
If the pregnancy was what stood between her and her husband, perhaps ending the pregnancy would remove the barrier.
Perhaps she could go back.
Perhaps her husband would accept her again.
The thought was painful, desperate and complicated, but Nikki was no longer thinking with the calm certainty she wished she had.
