I stayed until Clara fell asleep again.<\/p>\n
Even then, I didn't leave immediately.<\/p>\n
I watched the blanket rise and fall with her breathing and listened to the steady sound of the monitor beside her bed.<\/p>\n
The phone remained face down on the table.<\/p>\n
I tried not to look at it.<\/p>\n
I failed more often than I wanted to admit.<\/p>\n
There was nothing special about the phone itself.<\/p>\n
A dark case.<\/p>\n
A slightly scratched screen.<\/p>\n
A charging cable curled beside the plastic cup.<\/p>\n
I had seen those things countless times before.<\/p>\n
That night, they seemed to belong to a conversation I hadn't been invited to have.<\/p>\n
I hated that feeling.<\/p>\n
I had never wanted to be the kind of person who searched for hidden meanings in everything.<\/p>\n
I didn't want to watch Clara's face for signs of dishonesty.<\/p>\n
I didn't want to measure the time between a notification and the moment she picked up her phone.<\/p>\n
I wanted to sit beside her without wondering whether she was waiting for someone else to contact her.<\/p>\n
But wanting something didn't make it happen.<\/p>\n
A nurse entered and checked Clara's blood pressure.<\/p>\n
I moved away from the bed while she worked.<\/p>\n
Clara woke briefly when the cuff tightened around her arm.<\/p>\n
The nurse spoke to her in a reassuring voice, then waited for the reading.<\/p>\n
I watched the numbers appear.<\/p>\n
I didn't understand every detail, but I understood enough to know why the doctors were being careful.<\/p>\n
The nurse finished and wrote something on her chart.<\/p>\n
"Try to get some rest," she told Clara.<\/p>\n
Clara nodded.<\/p>\n
After the nurse left, I returned to my chair.<\/p>\n
I thought about asking whether Clara remembered everything that had happened during the delivery.<\/p>\n
I wanted to know what she had been thinking when the doctors decided to act quickly.<\/p>\n
But I stopped myself.<\/p>\n
She had already answered enough questions that night.<\/p>\n
She deserved a little peace.<\/p>\n
I leaned back and rubbed my eyes.<\/p>\n
For a moment, I could almost imagine that we were home.<\/p>\n
I could imagine the ordinary things waiting for us there.<\/p>\n
The familiar furniture.<\/p>\n
The small daily decisions.<\/p>\n
The conversations that began without either person having to prepare for them.<\/p>\n
I wanted that ordinary life back.<\/p>\n
I wanted it so badly that I was willing to ignore anything that threatened it.<\/p>\n
Looking back, that was one of the first things I did wrong.<\/p>\n
I mistook avoiding a difficult question for protecting someone I loved.<\/p>\n
The distinction seemed small at the time.<\/p>\n
It wasn't.<\/p>\n
Clara woke again after a while.<\/p>\n
She looked around the room as though she needed a moment to remember where she was.<\/p>\n
Then she saw me.<\/p>\n
"You're still here."<\/p>\n
"I said I would be."<\/p>\n
She gave a faint smile.<\/p>\n
I felt better immediately.<\/p>\n
That was how easily she could still affect me.<\/p>\n
One small expression from her, and I wanted to believe that everything between us was exactly as it had been before.<\/p>\n
She asked for water.<\/p>\n
I handed her the cup and waited while she drank.<\/p>\n
When she returned it, I placed it carefully on the table.<\/p>\n
The phone sat beside it.<\/p>\n
Clara watched my hand move away.<\/p>\n
I noticed.<\/p>\n
This time, I couldn't pretend I hadn't.<\/p>\n
"Do you want me to move your phone closer?"<\/p>\n
She shook her head.<\/p>\n
"No, it's fine."<\/p>\n
I withdrew my hand.<\/p>\n
Neither of us said anything else.<\/p>\n
The silence lasted long enough for me to become aware of how carefully I was sitting.<\/p>\n
My shoulders were tense.<\/p>\n
My jaw hurt from clenching it.<\/p>\n
I released the tension and tried to breathe normally.<\/p>\n
Clara turned toward the window.<\/p>\n
I looked down at the floor.<\/p>\n
There were small marks near the leg of my chair, dark streaks left by shoes and wheels.<\/p>\n
I followed one of them with my eyes.<\/p>\n
It was easier than looking at her.<\/p>\n
A little later, she asked me what time it was.<\/p>\n
I checked the clock.<\/p>\n
I told her.<\/p>\n
She nodded and closed her eyes.<\/p>\n
I wondered whether she was counting the hours until she could leave the hospital.<\/p>\n
I wondered whether she was thinking about the baby.<\/p>\n
I wondered whether the message had anything to do with the questions I couldn't bring myself to ask.<\/p>\n
Then I caught myself again.<\/p>\n
I had no evidence.<\/p>\n
A phone notification was not a confession.<\/p>\n
A tired expression was not proof of anything.<\/p>\n
And a person who had just experienced a frightening delivery was allowed to be quiet without explaining every thought that crossed her mind.<\/p>\n
I knew all of that.<\/p>\n
I still felt uneasy.<\/p>\n
Eventually, Clara fell asleep more deeply.<\/p>\n
I stood and walked outside to stretch my legs.<\/p>\n
The corridor had grown quieter.<\/p>\n
A few people remained in the waiting area, speaking softly among themselves.<\/p>\n
I passed the water dispenser and stopped beside a window.<\/p>\n
The glass reflected my face.<\/p>\n
I looked tired.<\/p>\n
Older, somehow.<\/p>\n
I wondered how Clara saw me.<\/p>\n
Did she see someone who had stayed beside her when she needed him?<\/p>\n
Or did she see someone she was afraid to speak honestly to?<\/p>\n
That question stayed with me.<\/p>\n
I couldn't decide which possibility frightened me more.<\/p>\n
When I returned to the room, Clara was awake again.<\/p>\n
She had turned slightly toward the table.<\/p>\n
Her phone was in her hand.<\/p>\n
I stopped near the door.<\/p>\n
She looked up.<\/p>\n
For one brief moment, neither of us moved.<\/p>\n
Then she lowered the phone onto the blanket.<\/p>\n
"Is everything okay?" I asked.<\/p>\n
She nodded.<\/p>\n
"Yes."<\/p>\n
I waited for more.<\/p>\n
Nothing came.<\/p>\n
I walked to the chair and sat down.<\/p>\n
I wanted to believe her answer.<\/p>\n
I wanted to accept it without needing another sentence.<\/p>\n
So I did.<\/p>\n
At least, I said I did.<\/p>\n
But as the night continued, I began to understand that trust wasn't simply the absence of questions.<\/p>\n
Sometimes it was the willingness to ask one and accept the answer.<\/p>\n
I hadn't reached that point yet.<\/p>\n
I was still trying to protect the version of our life that existed before I noticed the phone.<\/p>\n
I didn't know what the message meant.<\/p>\n
I only knew that I was afraid to find out.<\/p>\n
I stayed until Clara fell asleep again. Even then, I didn't leave immediately. I watched the blanket rise and fall with her breathing and listened to the steady sound of … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37479,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-insightdrama"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37484"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37484\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37504,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37484\/revisions\/37504"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/37479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}