"Take me to St. Meridian Hospital," I told the driver.
He glanced at me in the rearview mirror briefly then nodded and adjusted the route without a word. I leaned my head against the cold window and watched the city rearrange itself around us and breathed slowly until the tightness in my chest loosened enough to let me think clearly.
I didn't want to go home.
Daniel's at home with his back turned in the bed and a woman's name saved on his phone without a last name. Home was a house that had slowly become a building I slept in. I wasn't ready to walk through that door tonight and lie beside a man I was starting to suspect had already left the marriage without telling me.
I needed my son.
---
The night nurse at the front desk looked up when I walked in and her expression shifted from s
