The hospital slowly disappeared in my rearview mirror while Nora slept beside me in her car seat.
For the first time in thirteen days, I finally let myself breathe.
Thirteen days in the NICU.
Thirteen days of sitting beside an incubator, listening to machines beep while nurses spoke in careful, gentle voices.
Thirteen nights of going home to an empty apartment.
Thirteen mornings of returning before sunrise.
And now my daughter was finally coming home.
Four pounds, eleven ounces.
Breathing on her own.
One tiny fist tucked beside her cheek.
I truly believed the worst was behind us.
I still think about how certain I was.
Nora had her father’s dark curls.
His small cleft chin.
And his eyes.
One was a clear, bright blue.
The other was so dark it almost looked black.
The doctors called it heterochromia.
Two different eye colors.
Unusual, but harmless.
“Someone else in the family probably has it,” the discharge nurse had told me. “These things often run in families.”
Then she smiled.
“Who did she get it from?”
I had looked down at Nora.
“Her father.”
I hadn’t said Caleb’s name aloud in months.
Because Caleb disappeared the same night I told him I was pregnant.
No note.
No explanation.
No goodbye.
Nothing.
That was what destroyed me most.
There had been no warning.
No argument.
No distance between us.
When I showed him the pregnancy test, Caleb simply stared at it for several seconds.
Then he looked at me.
“Are you okay?”
“I don’t know.”
He took both my hands.
“Then we’ll figure it out.”
I started crying.
“You’re not scared?”
“Terrified.”
Then he smiled that crooked smile I loved.
And I laughed through my tears.
That was Caleb.
He was always honest, even when pretending would have been easier.
Before leaving that night, he kissed my forehead.
He said he needed to go home and pick up a few things.
He promised he would call me first thing in the morning.
He never did.
By noon, my messages remained unread.
By evening, his phone went directly to voicemail.
The next morning, I drove to his apartment.
Half his closet was empty.
