He Missed 17 Calls, Now He Misses Me

Three days before my due date, my husband James Bishop drove his first love, Sera Voss, up to Alaska to see the northern lights. I had my hands on my belly and told him I was about to pop. He checked his watch. "Sera's been waiting six years to see these lights. I'm not letting her down again." At 2 a.m., my water broke. Blood ran down my leg onto the floor. I crawled to the door and called him seventeen times. The last one, someone finally picked up. All I heard was Sera laughing. I begged him to come home. He said, "You faked contractions last week too just to get me back." So I got myself an Uber to the hospital. He never showed. Sera spliced our call into her aurora vlog. She slapped joke captions over my voice, and the comments were nothing but laughing-crying emojis. James commented at the top: [She's always like this.] Two hours later, the baby I'd waited six years for was gone. The nurse asked if I wanted my husband listed as my emergency contact. I flipped my phone face down. "No." Just leave the spouse section blank too. ... When the nurse handed the form back, James's name had already been crossed out in black ink. I stared at that line for a second. My phone buzzed. James's assistant, Marcus Kane. "Mrs. Bishop, the TikTok video's turned into a PR nightmare." "Everyone's dragging Sera in the comments—saying it's messed up to turn your crying into comedy, and someone dug up the fact that she went to Alaska with your husband." "Her image is tanking. PR wants you to post 'Glad you guys had fun' from your account and like her post." "That way we can spin it as 'you two are cool, it was just a joke between friends.'" I looked down at the table beside my bed. My baby had been dead less than two hours, and they were busy figuring out how to save Sera's reputation. "So you want me to say Sera mocking my crying was fine?" Marcus paused. His voice got quieter. "Mrs. Bishop, Sera didn't mean anything by it. She just thought your voice sounded... funny." "She posted my crying. My begging. And now I'm supposed to say it was a joke?" Dead silence on the other end. I didn't wait for an answer. I hung up. Seconds later, James called. "Rowan, why'd you hang up?" His voice was soft, same as always. "Marcus filled you in, right? Just play along with the Sera thing. Don't let it blow up more." "I called you seventeen times." "I know." He paused. "You said you were having contractions last week too. I rushed home, and you just wanted dinner with me." I gripped my phone tighter. "This time was real." "I know you're uncomfortable this late in the pregnancy." He didn't seem to hear what I was really saying. "The housekeeper already swapped out your pregnancy pillow. The crib got delivered too—the one you'd been eyeing forever." "I'll be back the day after tomorrow. I'll take you to your checkup." The room was warm, but his words made me shake. That crib—I'd picked it out five years ago, when I was pregnant the first time. I lost that baby. I never brought it up again. But James remembered. He remembered I could only sleep on my left side. That I couldn't handle strong perfume. That we'd need blackout curtains in the nursery. He even remembered I liked to sterilize bottles and leave them upside down on the second shelf. He remembered everything. He just didn't show up. "James." I watched the nurse wheel the tray out. My voice was barely there. "When you get back, can you actually take me to my checkup?" "Of course." He said it so fast, like there was never any question. "We've waited so long for this, Rowan. You're about to be a mom. Don't start drama now." I closed my eyes. On his end, I heard Sera call out. "James, come on, the aurora's here!" He answered her, then said to me, "Just deal with the Sera thing first. We'll talk when I'm back." "Okay." I didn't tell him the baby was gone. Not to punish him. I just didn't know who I was supposed to be when I said it. His wife? But he hadn't acted like a husband. The last thing on my screen was Sera's vlog. The aurora. The laughing. The wind. And me, screaming for help. The top comments read: [Is this chick insane? Someone's wife is in labor and she's filming comedy clips?] [Sera Voss, come apologize.] [James Bishop is married, right? And he's out watching auroras with another woman??] James's comment was buried under the hate. [She's always like this.] I stared at it for a long time. Then I reached over and flipped my phone face down on the nightstand. Strangers were cursing Sera out for me. My husband was begging me to shut up for her.

The next morning, I went to Sutton Pages, the children's reading foundation. We'd set it up in our fifth year of marriage, with startup money from my prenup trust. "Sutton" was my last name. "Pages" was James's idea—he said every page was a future a kid could turn. Back then, he'd had his arm around me, saying once the baby was born, we'd build the foundation's first reading room in the city where our child was born. Sutton Pages wasn't a company. It wasn't some decoration for someone's PR. It was supposed to be the first letter we ever wrote to our kid. But when I pushed through the doors, the big screen in the lobby was looping the aurora vlog. The conference room door swung open. Sera walked out, wearing a pale cashmere dress, dark circles under her eyes from no sleep. I stopped when I saw her. "Aren't you still in Alaska?" "Everyone's dragging me online." Her voice shook a little. "James told me to come back and handle it." "Handle what?" "The backlash." She held out a bottled water. "Rowan, just post one thing. Say we're friends. Say it was a joke. The internet will back off." I didn't take the water. "Why would I speak up for you?" Her smile finally faltered. "I know the video upset you. But I didn't think it would blow up like this." "They're calling me cold-blooded, calling me a homewrecker. Someone dug up the foundation's records and said I was stealing your family..." "So you think they're wrong?" "Rowan—" "The person cut into a punchline in that video was me. The person laughed at was me. The person who just lost her baby was me." I looked at her. "And now you want me to help you clean up your image?" Her fingers tightened around the bottle, knuckles going white. Then she pulled a document from her bag and slapped it on the table. "Fine. Fine. Then don't blame James when he transfers this foundation to me." I stared at the papers, my fingers curling slowly. "Transferring it to you?" Sera lifted her head and looked me straight in the eye. "Rowan, I'm not here to beg. I'm here to tell you." "James said if you clear things up, the foundation stays yours, and he stays with you." "If you won't... then we go through legal channels." I looked at her, and the whole thing felt absurd. This woman had used my pain for views, and now she was standing here with a document my husband had signed, ready to take my foundation. And she stood there like she was doing me a favor by offering me a way out. I picked up the document and read it for a long time. Then I set it back down, pulled out my phone, and called my lawyer. "Tell finance to freeze all future funding from my personal trust. Suspend every future payment from my trust. Effective today." Sera's smile finally faded. "You can't do this—" "This is my money. My name. My foundation." I looked at her. "I'm taking it back. You got a problem with that?" "You can't shut down programs for kids over one video—" "I'm not the one destroying them." I grabbed my bag and stood up. "You and him are." She froze. I looked at her, a dull pain twisting in my belly. My hand moved to cover it instinctively. There was still a swell there from the birth, but no movement. Nothing kicked back. When my lawyer arrived, I signed the divestment statement on the spot. My hand shook hard as I signed. Five years ago, when I lost my first baby, James held me in the hospital hallway all night. He said we'd have another. We'd have a real home, a real family. Later, he built Sutton Pages with my trust. I thought he'd turned that promise into something real. Now I was deleting my own name from it with my own hand. It was the last headstone I could give to that future. The second I finished signing, James called. Marcus had him on speaker. "Rowan, what are you doing at the foundation?" "Taking back my money and my name." "Do you realize how bad the optics are for Sera right now? If you pull funding now, you're basically confirming what everyone's saying—" "How is that my problem?" "You—" "People are dragging her because she deserves it." My voice was flat. He went quiet for three seconds. "I've already called the bank. Your joint accounts are frozen until you calm down." "Is that my card you're freezing, or the last say I have in this family?" A few seconds of silence. "I'm protecting you." "You're protecting her. Don't get it twisted." I hung up and handed the signed papers to my lawyer. Outside the window, the Sutton Pages sign was still lit up. I didn't care anymore how long it stayed on.

That evening, the foundation's website updated with an announcement. [Sutton Pages Children's Reading Foundation is hereby removing its director's name. Former director Ms. Rowan Sutton has terminated her partnership for personal reasons. Foundation affairs will be temporarily overseen by Sera Voss.] I sat in the back of a cab, staring at that line. For the first time, I didn't bother explaining that it wasn't "personal reasons." I just moved my divorce consultation with the lawyer to the next morning. I rented a small apartment near the hospital. One bedroom, one bath. Nothing fancy. When I moved, I only took my ID, my bank cards, and a few clothes. I didn't even take the music box James had bought for the baby. That afternoon, James finally got back from Alaska. He didn't come to the hospital. He went straight to the townhouse on the Upper East Side. Half an hour later, Marcus called. He'd already tracked down my address. "Mr. Bishop wants to see you. He says you can bring your lawyer and meet him at the house." I sat next to an unopened cardboard box, a deep ache cutting through my abdomen at the same time. I pressed my hand against it without thinking. "Tell him I'm not coming back." "Mrs. Bishop, he just got home. He's not in a good place. You're making this harder than it needs to be." "It's not my mess to fix." Less than ten minutes after I hung up, the doorbell rang. James stood outside, Marcus and a stylist behind him, several nicely wrapped boxes in his hands. He was wearing the black coat he'd changed into after landing. He still had Alaska on him—that cold, sharp smell. But the first thing he looked at when he walked in was my feet. "The floor's cold. Why aren't you wearing socks?" He frowned and started to take off his coat to wrap around me. I stepped back. The coat landed on the arm of the sofa. His hands stopped mid-air. His eyes moved from my pale face down to my oversized knit cardigan. His frown didn't let up. "Did you go to the hospital?" "I did." "What did the doctor say?" "He told me to rest." I wasn't lying. I just didn't tell him that the rest the doctor meant was post-loss recovery. "Why didn't you have the doctor send the report to Marcus?" "Because it's MY medical record." "Rowan, I'm just worried about you and the baby." I looked up at him. "You weren't this worried when I called you seventeen times." His face stiffened for a second. "I told you, I didn't know how serious it was. And last week you also—" "So this time, you chose not to believe me." His voice dropped. "I never said I didn't believe you." "I just figured someone was home. The housekeeper, the driver. You'd be fine." Except the driver had been sent to deliver Sera's camera gear, and the housekeeper had taken the day off. I looked at him and didn't bother explaining. He was still trying to find a version of that night he could live with. But that night didn't need a version anymore. Marcus handed me a photo. In it, a powder-blue crib sat in the room next to the master bedroom, a mobile I'd picked out five years ago hanging above it. "The crib's already here," James said. "The color and size are what you picked. If you don't like the rest, we can swap it out." I didn't take the photo. "Send it back." "Why?" "I don't need it." He took that as me being emotional. "If you don't like it now, just leave it for later. Once the baby's here, you'll use it." My fingers curled tighter inside my sleeve. He still thought the baby was fine. He still thought that as long as the room, the crib, and the gifts were ready, those seventeen unanswered calls could just be written off as a regular fight. I didn't correct him. Not to punish him. Not to watch him humiliate himself in front of everyone. I just suddenly felt like I didn't owe him the truth he'd created with his own hands.