The Distance Between Us

I woke to a machine beeping beside me and the feeling that my body no longer belonged to me.

My throat burned. My abdomen felt split open. There was pressure around my legs and something taped to my hand.

But none of that mattered.

"My baby."

The words came out as air.

Natalie stood so quickly from the chair beside my bed that it scraped the floor.

"Rachel."

"Where is he?"

She reached for my hand.

"He's alive."

I closed my eyes.

Alive.

The word was not enough, but it was everything.

"Tell me."

"He was born at two fifty-eight. Three pounds, seven ounces. He needed help breathing, but the neonatologist said he responded well. He's in the NICU."

"I want to see him."

"You just came out of surgery."

"I want to see him."

A nurse stepped into the room. "And we will get you there as soon as Dr. Patel clears you to sit up safely."

I looked around.

Marta was asleep in a corner chair with her arms folded. Natalie looked as if she had been crying for hours.

There was one person missing.

I already knew the answer, but I asked anyway.

"Ethan?"

Natalie did not soften it.

"No."

"Did he call?"

"Claire called back."

That hurt worse than I expected.

"What did she say?"

"That Ethan was with her specialist and had left his phone upstairs. She said she would find him. Then she called again forty minutes later and said he was on his way to the airport."

"Forty minutes."

"Rachel—"

"It took forty minutes for him to decide to come home?"

"I don't know what happened there."

"I do."

My blood pressure monitor began to alarm.

The nurse came closer. "You need to stay calm."

I almost laughed.

"I've been calm for six months."

Dr. Patel arrived a few minutes later and explained what had happened. Placental abruption. Severe preeclampsia. Significant blood loss. Emergency cesarean delivery.

"You scared us," she said.

"Was I dying?"

She paused long enough to answer honestly.

"You were very sick."

"That's not what I asked."

Natalie tightened her grip on my hand.

Dr. Patel looked at me directly. "Without emergency treatment, the situation could have become fatal for both of you."

The room went quiet.

For months, I had edited my life before speaking to Ethan. I had removed the frightening parts so he would not feel torn. I had turned danger into fatigue, loneliness into understanding, and anger into patience.

Now there was nothing left to edit.

"Does he know that?" I asked.

Natalie answered. "I told Claire exactly what the doctor said."

"Not him. Claire."

No one spoke.

I stared at the ceiling until the edges blurred.

"I need my phone."

Natalie hesitated.

"Rachel, maybe sleep first."

"My phone."

She handed it to me.

There were twenty-three missed calls.

Eighteen were from Ethan.

His messages filled the screen.

Rachel, call me.

I'm leaving now.

Please answer.

I didn't know it was this bad.

I'm sorry.

Please tell me you and the baby are alive.

That last message had arrived thirty-one minutes earlier.

I read it twice.

Then I opened my contacts and searched for a name Natalie had given me months ago when she was angry enough for both of us.

Avery Cole, Family Law.

Natalie saw the screen.

"Are you sure?"

"No."

She waited.

"But I know what I'm not sure about anymore," I said. "I'm not sure this marriage exists in any way that matters."

It was just after nine in the morning when Avery answered.

"Cole and Mason. This is Avery."

"My name is Rachel Whitmore. Natalie Brooks gave me your number."

Natalie's eyes filled, but she said nothing.

"How can I help you, Rachel?"

I looked at the bandage on my hand. At the blood pressure cuff. At the empty chair on the other side of my bed.

"I need to know how to file for divorce."

There was a brief pause.

"Are you safe right now?"

I swallowed.

"I'm in the hospital."

Avery's tone changed. "Take your time."

I told her the short version. Husband gone nearly six months. Pregnant. Emergency delivery. Premature son in intensive care. Husband still overseas.

She did not tell me what to do.

She told me what my options were.

By the time the call ended, I had an appointment for two days later by video, a list of documents to secure, and one instruction that felt more important than the rest.

"Do not make decisions from panic," Avery said. "Make them from facts."

Afterward, a NICU nurse came to take me upstairs in a wheelchair.

My son was smaller than any baby I had ever seen.

Tubes surrounded him. A tiny cap covered his head. His chest moved beneath the warm light of the incubator.

"His name?" the nurse asked.

I had spent months thinking Ethan and I would choose together.

I put my hand through the round opening in the incubator and touched one finger to my son's palm.

His hand closed around it.

"Noah," I said.

The name had been on my private list since week twelve.

"Noah Whitmore."

The nurse smiled.