“No. God, no.”
I stared at him.
“Then whose is she?”
He rubbed both hands over his face.
“Do you remember I told you about Anna?”
The name meant something.
Barely.
He’d mentioned it once, maybe twice, years earlier.
Before me.
Before us.
His first love.
They had been 22.
They had talked about a house, children, and all the things people that age believe they’ve already planned.
Then life happened.
They separated.
Anna married someone else.
James eventually met me.
That was all I knew.
“I remember.”
“I haven’t spoken to her in 11 years.”
I said nothing.
“Eleven years,” he repeated. “Not a call. Not a message. Nothing. I want you to know that before I say anything else.”
My heart began beating faster.
“Why is she here?”
James looked toward the room.
“She was.”
I heard the word immediately.
“Was?”
He nodded.
Then he told me the rest badly.
Out of order.
The way people tell a story when it still feels impossible coming out of their own mouths.
Anna had been pregnant.
Seven months along when her husband left.
No warning, apparently.
No reconciliation.
He simply left and moved away.
Her mother had died the year before.
Her father had been gone since she was a teenager.
She had no siblings and no close relatives nearby.
Then, at four in the morning, she went into labor.
She drove herself to the hospital until the contractions became too strong.
Then she called an ambulance from a gas station.
