The skin beneath the gauze was numb. Nothing there at all.

I kept thinking about yesterday morning—standing in front of the bathroom mirror, holding that ultrasound report. A tiny dot on the printout. The doctor had said it was a gestational sac, about six weeks along.

I'd smiled at my reflection, thinking I would tell Cliff that evening.

How would he react?

I spent a long time trying to picture it and still couldn't decide whether he'd smile or just go blank. Three years of marriage, and he had never shown me a single strong emotion. I'd told myself that was simply who he was. Reserved. Restrained. Not the type for pretty words.

I'd told myself that what we had might lack passion, but at least it had feeling.

I was wrong.

He wasn't without feeling. He'd just saved all of it for someone else.

On the third day in the hospital, Cliff came.

He pushed open the door wearing a black overcoat, a fruit basket in one hand. His color was bad, dark shadows bruising the skin beneath his eyes, like he hadn't slept properly in days.

He set the basket on the nightstand, pulled a chair to the bedside, and sat down.

“How are you feeling?”

“Fine.”

“The doctor said the surgery went well.”

“Mm.”

Silence.

He looked out the window. I looked at the ceiling.

“That day……” He trailed off before he really started.

I waited for him to go on.

“Phyllis had just flown back. I was giving her a ride from the airport. I didn't expect anything to happen.”

“Mm.”

“The truck driver was fully at fault. Insurance will cover it.”

“Mm.”

Another stretch of silence.

“Your leg. The doctor says if it heals well, it won't affect your walking.”

“Mm.”

He finally turned to look at me, a crease forming between his brows.

“Can you say something other than 'mm'?”

I turned my head toward him.

“What do you want me to say?”

His mouth opened, but nothing came out.

I looked at him and felt suddenly exhausted. Not a body kind of tired—the kind that leaks out from somewhere deep in your bones, the kind no amount of rest will ever fix.

“Cliff,” I said. “Why didn't you save me first that day?”

His expression shifted. Briefly, but I caught it.

“It was chaotic. I——”

“She had a scrape.”

“I didn't know that at the time.”

“You didn't know? You crouched in front of her for five minutes. And you didn't know it was just a scrape?”

He went quiet.

“Or maybe,” I said slowly, “you didn't care how badly I was hurt? You just instinctively chose to save her first?”

“No.”

“Then tell me why.”

He was silent for a long time.

Long enough that I thought he wasn't going to answer.

“She's afraid of pain,” he said.

I stared at him.

“She's been that way since we were kids. A single shot could make her cry for half the day. When I saw the blood on her leg, my first reaction was——”

“Your first reaction was to save her. Because she's afraid of pain.”

I finished the sentence for him.

He didn't deny it.

I laughed.

Laughed until the tears slid from the corners of my eyes and soaked into the pillow.

“I'm not afraid of pain, right?”

“That's not what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean?”

“What I meant was……” He pressed his fingers against the bridge of his nose. “Everything was happening at once. I couldn't—I admit my first reaction was to go to her. But that wasn't because……”

“Because what? Because you love her?”

“Christine.”

“Because you never got over her?”

“Enough.”

“Because you only married me because she left the country, and you couldn't find anyone better?”

“I said enough.”

He shoved to his feet. The chair caught behind him and cracked against the floor.

I shut up.

He stood beside the bed, chest heaving, fists clenched so tight the veins stood out along his knuckles. He rarely lost his temper. In all the time I'd known him, this was the first time he'd come undone in front of me.

But it passed quickly. He forced it back down.

He bent and righted the chair, sat again. When he spoke, his voice had returned to that familiar flatness.

“Just rest. Don't think about it.”

Don't think about it.

I nearly died on the operating table. My uterus was gone. My baby was gone. My husband chose to save the one he never got over at the scene of the crash, and now he was telling me not to think about it.

I said nothing.

He sat for a while, then stood and said the company needed him. He left.

At the door, I called out.

“Cliff.”

He stopped. Didn't turn around.

“The ultrasound report,” I said. “It's in the glove compartment on the passenger side.”

His back went rigid.

“I was going to show it to you that night.”

He stood where he was. Completely still.

“Six weeks,” I said. “The doctor said there was already a heartbeat.”

He turned around slowly.

His eyes were red.

“It's gone,” I said. “They removed it all during the surgery.”

His lips moved, like he wanted to say something. Nothing came out.

“Go.” I closed my eyes.

He stood there for a long time. So long I thought he might not leave.

But in the end, he did.

The door closed softly. Like him. Even the way he left refused to leave a mark.

I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling.

The heart monitor beeped on. Sunlight came through the window and fell across my bed.

I remembered the day he moved in, right after the wedding. One suitcase and a cardboard box—that was everything he brought. The box was full of books, and he placed them on the shelf one by one, handling each like it mattered.

I stood beside him, helping. When I picked up one of the books, a photograph slipped out.

Cliff and Phyllis. A photo of the two of them together.

Both in graduation gowns, standing at the campus gate. She had her arm linked through his, smiling wide and sweet. He faced the camera with the faintest lift at the corner of his mouth.

The closest thing to a smile I had ever seen on Cliff's face.

He took the photo from my hand, slipped it back between the pages, and said, “Old classmate.”

I didn't press him.

I told myself the past was the past. You move forward.

Now I know. Some people never become the past.

Because they never really left.

On the fifth day, my mother arrived.

She'd taken an overnight train from back home. Her eyes were swollen when she got there. She stood in the doorway, saw me lying in the hospital bed, and her lips trembled a few times. She didn't cry.

“Mom,” I said. “I'm okay.”

She came over and touched my forehead, then my hand. Her fingers were rough, the knuckles thickened and bent from years of work, but warm.

“How did it get this bad,” her voice cracked, “how did it get this bad……”

“Car accident. Just bad luck.”

“Where's Cliff? Why isn't he here?”

“He's busy.”

My mother looked at me. Said nothing.

She reached into her bag and took out a thermos, unscrewed the lid—lotus root and pork rib soup, my favorite. She unpacked everything layer by layer: small bowl, spoon, napkins, each piece set down neatly on the side table.

“Have some soup. Build your strength.”

I propped myself up. My ribs still ached, but less than the days before. I took the bowl and drank.

The soup was rich, the lotus root melting and tender, the ribs falling clean off the bone. My mother's cooking, down to the last drop.

“Mom,” I said, two spoonfuls in, setting the bowl down. “Cliff and I are probably getting a divorce.”

Her spoon clattered against the table.

“What did you just say?”

I told her everything.

Phyllis coming back to the country. The crash. Cliff choosing to save her first. The baby gone. My uterus, removed.

I was calm the whole time, like I was telling someone else's story.

When I finished, my mother was quiet for a long time.

Then she stood up, walked to the window, and turned her back to me.

I could see her shoulders shaking.

“Mom.”

“Mm.” Her voice came out muffled.

“Don't cry.”

“I'm not.”

She turned around. Her eyes were red, but she really wasn't crying. She walked back, sat down again, and pushed the soup bowl toward me.

“Finish it.”

I drank the whole bowl.

She gathered the dishes and stood up, saying she'd go wash them. At the doorway she paused.

“Chrissy,” she said, “all I care about is whether you're okay. Nothing else matters.”

“I know.”

She left.

I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling.

The heart monitor beeped on. Sunlight from the window had shifted onto the wall, falling across a cheap landscape print. A field of sunflowers, bright gold, almost gaudy with color.

I thought of the row of books on the top shelf of Cliff's bookcase. All of them Phyllis's—architecture and design. He'd studied finance. He would never read a single one of those books in his life.

But he kept them.

Kept them when he moved into my place. Kept them when we changed apartments. Three years, and he hadn't gotten rid of one.

Meanwhile, the wedding photo I'd put on his desk had been tucked into a drawer.

Not thrown away. Tucked away.

He probably thought that counted as respect.

That afternoon, the nurse came to change my dressing. When she peeled back the gauze, I looked down at the scar on my stomach.

Long and red, like a centipede crawled across my skin.

“It's healing nicely,” the nurse said. “A few more days and the stitches can come out.”

“Okay.”

“Your husband not visiting today?”

“No.”

She glanced at me, then didn't ask anything else. She finished the dressing, pulled the blanket back over me, and left.

I picked up my phone.

I had to scroll a long way down to find Cliff's name. Our last exchange was three days ago. He'd asked “How are you feeling today” and I'd replied “Fine”.

I scrolled up. It was all the same.

“Coming home for dinner?” “Not tonight.”

“Movie this weekend?” “Working.”

“Do you remember my birthday?” “Yeah.”

That last one was mine. He'd answered “Yeah”.

I wasn't even sure he actually remembered.

I closed the thread and scrolled through Instagram.

Phyllis had posted something new.

A photo of a coffee cup. Floor-to-ceiling windows behind it, sunlight falling across the rim, casting a long shadow.

The caption read：“It's good to be home.”

Cliff had liked it.

I stared at that like for a long time.

He had never liked a single thing I posted. He saw all of them—I knew because he'd occasionally mention something from one. But he never once hit like.

I used to think he just didn't care for that kind of thing.

Turns out he just didn't care for me.

I turned off my phone, rolled over, and faced the wall.

The wall was white, clean, and completely bare.

I stared at it and tried to figure out what I'd done wrong.