By my eighth month, I was helping him button his shirts.
Sometimes he had to stop halfway to the bathroom just to catch his breath.
I tried not to stare.
I tried not to let him see how frightened I was.
We both knew what was happening.
But neither of us wanted to spend our remaining days talking only about death.
So we talked about Cecelia.
We discussed the nursery.
We talked about what kind of father he wanted to be remembered as.
And sometimes, when he was feeling strong enough, he would place his hand on my stomach and wait for her to kick.
Those moments became precious.
A few weeks before he died, Mark began asking to speak to his doctor alone.
I never understood why.
Whenever I asked what they had discussed, Mark would squeeze my hand and smile.
“There’s something I need to arrange.”
Then he would say:
“Please trust me.”
It was unlike him to keep things from me.
Especially then.
We had always told each other everything.
But this time, he was strangely firm.
So I let him have his privacy.
I didn’t know that he was preparing for the possibility that he would never come home.
Mark died in the hospital with my hand wrapped around his.
There are moments in life when the mind refuses to accept what the eyes already know.
That was one of them.
I remember the sound of the machines.
The coldness of the room.
The weight of his hand becoming still.
And the terrible realization that the man I had planned to spend the rest of my life with would never meet the daughter we’d spent years dreaming about.
Afterward, there were papers to sign.
Decisions to make.
