Ethan used her name.”
I stared at him.
Seven months of unanswered questions suddenly crowded into the room.
I knew where Ethan had gone to school.
I knew the diner where he always ordered a burger without onions.
I knew he hated thunderstorms and loved old pickup trucks.
I knew how he took his coffee and which shoulder hurt when the weather turned cold.
But somehow, I had never known his father was Dr.
Michael Wright.
One of the most respected physicians in the county.
A man whose name was printed on plaques in the hospital lobby.
“He never told me,” I said.
“I know.”
Something about the certainty in Dr.
Wright’s answer made me look up sharply.
“How do you know?”
He hesitated.
“Because Ethan hasn’t spoken to me in almost four years.”
That was the first crack in the picture I had formed.
This wasn’t a powerful father secretly protecting his son.
This was something else.
I shifted my baby higher against my chest.
“Why?”
Dr.
Wright pulled a chair toward the bed but did not sit until I gave a small nod.
“Ethan and I had a difficult relationship for years.
I worked too much when he was young.
When his mother and I separated, he believed I had chosen this hospital over our family.
There were other arguments after that.
Things said by both of us that should never have been said.
Eventually he stopped answering my calls.”
He looked toward my son.
“I kept telling myself he needed space.
Then months became years.”
The explanation did not erase what Ethan had done to me.
If anything, it made me angrier.
“So he knows exactly what abandonment feels like,” I said.
Dr.
Wright’s face tightened.
“Yes.”
“And he still walked out on me.”
“Yes.”
He didn’t defend him.
That surprised me more than anything else.
I had expected excuses.
I had expected the instinctive protection of a father who had just discovered a grandchild.
Instead, Dr.
Wright looked ashamed.
“Did you know I was pregnant?” I asked.
“No.
I swear to you, Emily, I did not.”
“Did Ethan ever contact you?”
“Not about you.
Not about the baby.”
The nurse nearest the door quietly excused herself, giving us privacy.
The other checked my son’s identification band and then stepped away.
