While I Was Losing Our Baby, He Was Celebrating Her Dog’s Puppies Chapter 02

While I Was Losing Our Baby, He Was Celebrating Her Dog’s Puppies Chapter 02

Maybe Ethan noticed something change in my face, because he pulled me into a brief hug.

“All right. Let’s drop it. I promise I’ll go with you to your next prenatal appointment.”

It was always the same.

First came an excuse too flimsy to believe.

Then came a promise that next time would be different, as if a few words could erase everything he had already done.

But Ethan, there would never be another prenatal appointment for you to attend.

“Don’t bother. I want a divorce.”

Ethan stared at me for a second before anger took over.

“Erin, do reporters always have to turn every little thing into breaking news? I already told you, it was an accident. And look at you. You’re almost thirty, you’re pregnant, and all you do now is grunt work on the station’s production support team. If you leave me, who do you think is going to want you? I work ten-plus hours a day at the hospital. I don’t come home to listen to a woman who lives off me start fights over nothing.”

With that, he turned toward the door.

As he crossed the entryway, he noticed the corner of a document sticking out of my bag.

The words “Death Certificate” were impossible to miss.

He looked back at me, confused.

“Who died?”

He reached for the document.

Before he could pull it out, Blair called.

Her sobs sounded deliberately exaggerated even through the phone.

“Ethan, oh my God! I think one of the puppies is choking on milk! There are still customers in the store, and I’m seriously about to lose it. It’s not going to die, is it? This is terrifying. I don’t know what to do!”

Ethan went tense at once.

“Don’t cry. I’m coming right now.”

Then he rushed out without looking at me again.

He was in such a hurry that he even forgot to lock the study, a room he normally hated letting me enter.

I did not know why I went inside.

Then I saw what was under the desk.

Years ago, I had been one of the most promising young investigative reporters in the newsroom.

I had been assigned to interview the former director of Harborview Medical Center.

The retired doctor was notoriously reclusive and turned me down flat.

After days of working late to meet deadlines and waiting around the hospital for another chance to interview him, my blood sugar crashed and I fainted in the hospital garden.

Ethan was the one who helped me up.

He told me that once the former director made up his mind, almost no one could change it.

I was crushed that the interview seemed hopeless.

Then Ethan slipped an orange-flavored hard candy into my mouth and gave me a playful wink.

“But I like people who take their work seriously. If you can’t interview him, interview me.”

Only later did I learn that Ethan was one of Seattle’s youngest professors of surgery.

Plenty of news outlets had tried to interview the rising young surgeon, and he had turned down every one of them.

I was the only exception.

That was how Ethan and I met.

As both our careers grew busier, Ethan came to me one day with a hesitant request.

“Erin, I know becoming a top investigative reporter has always been your dream. But my parents are getting older, and someone has to take care of things at home. Could you put your career on hold for a while and help me look after them? I promise I’ll make it up to you someday.”

I knew becoming the best doctor he could be was his dream too.

So I compromised.

I did not quit the station.

I transferred to the slower-paced production support team so I could at least remain in the news business.

On sleepless nights, I would sit at my desk and turn my press badge over and over in my hands.

Whenever Ethan saw me doing it, guilt would cross his face, and he would promise all over again that someday he would make it up to me.

Now that same press badge, the one I had never been able to throw away, had been shoved under one leg of his desk to keep it from wobbling.

I opened his safe with Blair’s birthday.

A thick manila envelope sat on top.

It was filled with photographs of the two of them.

In some, they were embracing.

In others, they were kissing or walking hand in hand along the beach.

There were also receipts showing that Ethan had paid the down payment on Blair’s Belltown apartment, along with her shop rent and renovation costs.

Even though the shop lost money every month, he kept covering every shortfall.