Oliver stares at a willowy nurse with a vacant expression and watches her place several extra items into a bag for his baby girl. A new doctor, one he isn’t sure if he’s seen before, scrolls through a clipboard of discharge papers, monotonously dictating instructions. They’ve let Abigail stay in the hospital’s nursery for nearly a week. Not because she’s needed the attention, or that she isn’t a healthy baby, but because Oliver begged them to grant him enough time to bury his wife before being forced to take the child back with him to an empty home.
He’s detached, a blank slate, wishing for nothing more than to turn back time and insist that Nadia never skip a pill. He would’ve worn a rubber every single instance, plus double checked on her daily intake of birth control. Oliver thinks of
