PART8: She Came Home After Giving Birth, and I Asked, “What’s for Dinner?” — What Happened Next Changed Me Forever

PART 8

I sat down.

Mateo slept against my chest.

Teresa sat beside me.

For almost twenty minutes, neither of us spoke.

Then she said, “You need to hear something.”

I looked at her.

“Allison didn’t tell me everything.”

“What do you mean?”

“She asked me not to tell you.”

“About the mass?”

“No.”

I waited.

Teresa looked toward the operating room.

“She told me she had been thinking about leaving you.”

I felt the air disappear from the room.

“What?”

“She said she couldn’t raise Mateo in a house where she had to take care of two people.”

I stared at the floor.

“She was going to leave?”

“After the baby was born.”

I looked toward the doors.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“She asked me not to.”

I nodded slowly.

“Fair.”

Teresa looked at me.

“You’re angry.”

“No.”

“You should be.”

I shook my head.

“I’m angry at myself.”

She didn’t respond.

Then she said something I will never forget.

“Daniel, if Allison survives this and you go back to the way you were before, don’t ask her to stay.”

I looked at her.

“She deserves better.”

“I know.”

“No,” Teresa said.

“You don’t know yet. Knowing means changing.”

I looked down at Mateo.

He had opened his eyes.

He stared at me with the confused expression newborns have, as if he had no idea why adults made everything so complicated.

I kissed his forehead.

“I don’t want to lose them.”

Teresa’s voice softened.

“Then don’t spend your life being afraid of losing them.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Choosing them.”

The operating room doors opened.

A nurse came toward us.

“Family of Allison Parker?”

I stood immediately.

“Yes.”

“She is stable.”

I almost collapsed with relief.

“The procedure went well. The doctor will speak with you shortly.”

I closed my eyes.

Thank God.

But the nurse wasn’t finished.

“She’ll need follow-up testing for the mass you mentioned.”

I looked at Teresa.

She nodded.

The nurse walked away.

I sat down.

The relief lasted less than a minute.

Then my phone buzzed.

A message from Allison’s doctor.

I opened it.

We received the imaging results from her previous appointment. There is something you need to discuss with the oncology team.

I stared at the screen.

The words blurred.

I looked at my newborn son.

Then toward the doors where my wife was recovering.

Four days ago, I had thought the hardest part of becoming a father was getting no sleep.

Now I understood.

The hardest part was realizing that the woman who had spent years taking care of me had been quietly fighting something terrifying while I complained about dinner.

And when Allison finally woke up, I knew I couldn’t keep pretending our marriage was the same one we’d had before Mateo was born.

Because it wasn’t.

Something had broken.

But for the first time, I wasn’t thinking about how to fix it quickly.

I was thinking about how to become the kind of man who deserved another chance.

Even if she never gave me one.

CONTINUE READING PART9…