“I owe you an explanation.” He rubbed his face. “About Michelle. About why I left so suddenly.”
“Only if you’re ready,” Susan said.
Paul searched Susan’s face. She’d found her way into his carefully guarded life. She understood what it meant to sacrifice everything for ambition, and she deserved the truth, even if it revealed every ugly failure he’d spent years trying to outrun.
“Michelle got pregnant when I was securing funding for a third restaurant.” His voice was rough. “She was six months along when our baby died. I was in San Diego for the final investor presentation. Michelle called me and said something felt wrong.”
The memory came flooding back. He’d been sitting in a conference room, his phone buzzing insistently, and all he felt was annoyed at the interruption.
“We’d seen the midwife three days earlier and everything looked fine. Michelle had bled earlier in the pregnancy too, and the midwife said it was normal.” Paul forced himself to continue. “When she called me, I told her she was probably just overdoing things. I told her to lie down and rest and, if she was really worried, she should call the midwife.”
Susan’s hand came to her mouth.
“I turned my phone off because I needed to focus on the presentation.” Paul’s voice cracked. “By the time I turned it back on five hours later, Michelle had left eight messages. When I got home the next morning, our daughter was already gone.”
The silence that followed felt crushing.
“It was a placental abruption. Sophie—we’d already named her—died sometime during the night.” He drew a shaky breath. “When I saw Michelle, she told me something she’d never told me before. The doctor said that if she’d gone directly to the emergency room when the cramps started, they could have performed an emergency caesarean. At twenty-four weeks, Sophie would have needed months in the NICU. But she would have had a genuine chance at survival.”
Susan’s eyes filled with tears.
“If I’d told Michelle to go straight to the hospital instead of dismissing her concerns, our daughter would probably be alive right now.” The words tasted like ash. “She’d be twenty years old. But instead, she’s buried in a cemetery outside San Francisco because I thought a meeting was more important than my wife saying something was wrong.”
“You didn’t know,” Susan said, standing and crossing to him. “Paul, you couldn’t have known what was happening.”
“That’s what Michelle said.” Paul’s voice was hollow. “But she trusted me. She believed me when I said she was overreacting, even when she thought something was wrong.”
He turned to face Susan fully. “Michelle left me six months after Sophie died. She was afraid she’d lose herself if she stayed married to me.”
Susan reached for his hand, her fingers warm against his cold skin.
He gripped her hand and looked directly at her. “I’m terrified I’ll fall back into old habits with someone I care about. Someone like you.”
Susan’s eyes searched his face. “Is that why you didn’t tell me where you were going?”
Paul nodded. “When Karen called about Michelle, I panicked. I didn’t know how to explain twenty years of guilt in a text message.”
Susan was quiet for a moment. “What happened to Sophie was heartbreaking. But punishing yourself won’t bring your daughter back.”
Paul wiped tears from his eyes. “How do I forgive myself for something like that?”
“I don’t know. But maybe you start by accepting that you were human. That you’ve spent twenty years trying to become someone different.”
Paul pulled Susan closer, wrapping his arms around her. She came willingly, her head resting against his chest.
“I’m scared,” he whispered. “I’m scared of hurting you the way I hurt Michelle.”
“Being scared means you care. It means you’re paying attention.” Susan pulled back to look up at him. “The fact that you’re terrified of repeating your mistakes is probably the best insurance against not doing the same thing again.”
Paul took a deep breath. “Thank you,” he finally said. “For listening. For not running away.”
Susan’s gaze was steady. “I’m not going anywhere. We’ll figure this out together.”
Paul cupped her face in his hands. “I want to do this right. I want to build something real with you. But I need you to be patient with me.”
Susan nodded. “It doesn’t matter how long it takes. I’m not going anywhere.”
Paul placed a gentle kiss on Susan’s lips. When they pulled apart, he rested his forehead against hers. He had a past he wasn’t proud of, and a future that could be so much more.
