The One-Way Ticket He Never Saw Coming

My hand drifted lightly over that hand-painted sun.

He did love this unborn child, and he really was showing it, day by day. But that cowardly love of his, love with no boundaries at all, was like candy wrapped around shards of glass. I ate it until my mouth ran with blood.

I drew my hand back, stepped out of the nursery, and pulled the door shut behind me.

The living room lay in shadow. I crossed to the entryway, my eyes settling on the surface above the shoe cabinet, where a few things had been arranged in a neat row.

A prenatal bag stuffed with every kind of record and receipt, an insulated cup filled with hot water, and one yellow sticky note.

I leaned in for a look. On the note, in Silas's familiar handwriting, was the day's schedule:

"9:00 arrive at the hospital — 9:30 fetal monitoring — 10:00 ultrasound — 10:30 talk with the doctor."

Beside it was stuck a second slip of paper, this one blue:

"Must be back by 1 p.m. to pick up Luna and Sean for the gathering. Remember to buy the sugar-free cake the old lady likes."

The two notes side by side read like a precise timetable.

The morning belonged to his present wife's duties, the afternoon to his ex-wife's obligations. The hours carved up, clear as day.

A muffled mumble drifted out of the bedroom.

I held my breath. Silas rolled over, and the bed frame gave a faint creak.

"Don't cry, Sean… Daddy's here…"

He soothed the boy in his sleep, low and gentle.

I stood there and listened to his breathing settle back into an even rhythm. He was only dreaming. But that was exactly it, the unconscious thing surfacing on its own, laying bare where this home's heart truly lay.

Three years ago, I walked into this apartment for the first time. It was still bare concrete then, and Silas held my hand and pointed at the empty living room. "From now on, everything in here goes the way you like it."

I chose the pale gray curtains for the living room, the pure cotton bedding for the bedroom, the refrigerator for the kitchen.

Three years later, Sean's art award hung beside those curtains, a magnet with Luna's handwritten recipe was stuck to the fridge, and a pair of pink slippers always sat waiting in the shoe cabinet. Everything I'd chosen was still here, but there had been no place for me in this home for a long time.

At the entryway I put on my shoes and set the front-door key down beside that blue sticky note.

At five on the dot, my phone buzzed once. A message from the car service: "Arrived at the pickup point."

I turned the door handle and stepped out into the cold morning air.

At ten past seven, Silas was woken by his phone alarm.

Out of habit, he reached for the person beside him, meaning to pull me into his arms. But all he found was a stretch of sheet gone cold.

He jolted upright, rubbed his eyes, and stared at the empty half of the bed.

"Babe?" he called out.

No one answered.

He threw off the covers and got up, shuffling out of the bedroom in his slippers. The bathroom door stood open, no white steam rose in the kitchen, and the living room was quiet enough to hear the wall clock ticking.

He reached the entryway and saw the key lying beside the sticky note, and the divorce papers pressed under the insulated cup.

He picked up the few pages, flipped through them carelessly, and his brow furrowed. He let out a short scoff and tossed the papers back onto the surface. Grabbing his phone, he dialed my number.

I hung up on him. A text came through:

"Norma, there's a limit to throwing a tantrum. What's this, leaving your key there? Don't try to use divorce to pressure me. You're five months pregnant. Where do you think you'd go without me?"

"I tore the papers up. Quit this pointless joke. I already took the day off for the two of you. I'll be waiting at the hospital entrance at nine. Don't embarrass me."

I sat on the plane to Southport, looked at the message on my screen, calmly tapped delete, and powered the phone off.