My Husband Made Me Forget Our Dead Baby

We don't speak for three days.

Not in the morning when he makes coffee and leaves mine on the counter, untouched until it goes cold. Not in the evening when I hear his key in the lock and retreat to the bedroom before he can cross the threshold. Not in the terrible, suffocating hours between when the apartment becomes a mausoleum we both haunt separately.

On the fourth night, I wake at 2:17 a.m. to find his side of the bed still empty.

I lie there in the dark, listening. No sound from the bathroom. No glow of light beneath the bedroom door. Just the faint, almost imperceptible creak of floorboards from the direction of his study.

I slip out of bed, my bare feet silent on the hardwood, and move toward the thin line of light beneath his door.

He is standing at the window. Hands clasped behind his back, shoulders rigid, staring out at the city like a man watching something burn in the distance. He doesn't turn when I push the door open. Doesn't acknowledge me at all.

The room smells like old paper and sleeplessness.

"You should be asleep," he says finally, his voice so low it barely disturbs the air.

"So should you."

He exhales. A long, slow release that sounds like surrender. "I can't."

I step inside. The locked drawer beneath his desk catches my eye—still closed, still guarding whatever he's decided I'm not allowed to know. My fingers curl into fists at my sides.

"How long are we going to do this, Atticus?"

"Do what?" He still hasn't turned around.

"Live like strangers. Pretend we're not destroying each other."

Now he moves. Slowly, like the motion costs him something. When he faces me, the shadows under his eyes are deep enough to drown in.

"I don't know how to fix this," he says, and the rawness in his voice makes my chest tighten despite everything. "I keep trying to show you the truth, and you keep—" He stops. Shakes his head. "Who's been texting you, Meredith?"

The question lands like a slap.

"What?"

"Someone is feeding you information. Telling you where to go. What to think. Who is it?"

My pulse spikes. I take a step back, my spine hitting the doorframe. "That's none of your business."

"It is absolutely my business when they're tearing us apart." His voice sharpens, desperation bleeding through the careful control. "Whoever they are, they're lying to you. They're dangerous."

"No." The word comes out harder than I intended. "You don't get to do this. You don't get to isolate me from the one person who's actually—"

"Who, Meredith?" He takes a step toward me, and there's something wild in his eyes now, something I've never seen before. "Give me a name. Let me prove to you that they're not who you think they are."

I press my left wrist against the doorframe, grounding myself in the sharp pressure. "You want to control everything. Who I talk to. What I believe. You can't stand that someone else might actually care about me."

"That's not—" He stops. Closes his eyes. When he opens them again, the wildness is gone, replaced by something worse. Something that looks like grief. "I'm trying to protect you."

"From what? The truth?"

"From whoever is using you to destroy us."

The silence that follows is suffocating.

I turn to leave.

"Meredith, wait." His voice cracks. "Please."

I stop. Don't turn around. My hand grips the doorframe hard enough that my knuckles ache.

"There's something I need to tell you," he says quietly. "Something I should have told you a long time ago."

My heart hammers against my ribs. I force myself to turn, to look at him.

He's standing beside his desk now, one hand resting on the surface above the locked drawer. His fingers tremble.

"The drawer," he says. "The one you've been staring at. It's not work files."

I wait. My breath shallow.

"It's letters." He swallows hard, his throat working visibly. "Letters I've been writing for two years. To someone who never lived."

The floor tilts beneath me.

"What?"

"I kept it from you because I thought—" His voice breaks. He presses his palm flat against the desk, steadying himself. "I thought if you knew what we lost, it would break you. Your mind was so fragile after it happened, and I made a choice. I chose to carry it alone."

My vision blurs at the edges. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about the reason Adelaide's lab is the only place that can prove what I'm trying to tell you." His eyes meet mine, and they're haunted. Devastated. "I'm talking about the truth you can't remember because I let them take it from you."

I can't breathe. Can't think. The room is spinning, and all I can see is the locked drawer and the man standing over it like a grave.

"Tomorrow," he says, his voice barely above a whisper. "I'm taking you to the lab. And you're going to see everything."

I turn and walk out before my legs give out.

In the bedroom, I collapse onto the bed and pull my phone from beneath the pillow. My hands shake as I open the messages.

*Londyn,* I type. *He's trying to make me think I'm losing my mind.*

The reply comes within seconds.

*Then don't go with him tomorrow. Whatever he's planning, it's a trap. You need to leave. Now. Before he makes it impossible.*

I stare at the screen until the words blur.

Somewhere in the apartment, a door closes softly.

I lie back against the pillows, my phone clutched against my chest, and wait for morning.