Page 112 of Mended Hearts

I stared down at the open notebook between us as we sat at my favorite cafe. Leighton cradled her latte. I cradled my guilt.

Mtg. cardio after New Year.

Assess for meds. Heart stabilizers if needed?

Regular EKGs. BP checks.

NSTs after viability. (24 weeks.)

Labor controlled. Induction ideal. Pulse ox. Possible epidural.

My handwriting had startedneat and professional. Now it looked like I’d written it on a moving bus.

Because this was real.

This wasn’t a hypothetical. Wasn’t a theory or a dream or even a plan. This was happening. My girls?—

Okay, I didn’t know for sure if it was a girl, but Leighton had been referring to the baby that way so casually that my brain had already accepted it.

She’d been self-conscious about taking a Sunday appointment, but Dr. Swift had assured us it was no problem—he was already in for a delivery. And in reality, there weren’t many people who would risk the wrath of my brother or uncle, framed degrees or not.

Safe. That was the word that wouldn’t leave me.

I had one job—keep my family safe.

Now Leighton was in dangerbecauseof me. Yeah, the doctor said she looked great. But fuck if I believed that until we were holding our baby and she was upright and laughing and telling me I was dramatic.

We’d be working with his team, possibly with Maternal Fetal Medicine too. Cardiology would be monitoring her heart closely. The valve repair should hold. We’d know more after her next round of tests.

We’d left with a two-foot long sonogram that she quickly tucked in her purse, after Dr. Swift—the very confident, very quirky, verynot-swift doctor—assured us that everything looked great.

The man moved like a personified tortoise. He had too much neck— even on a rather tall body—was fifteen minutes late to the appointment, and crept in through a slow, creaky opening of the door. His steps were methodical, like he aimed not to startle a cornered animal, and he had a handshake that looked forced and a little painful. But for what he lacked in expediency, he made up for in confidence and pragmatism, something we both appreciated immensely.

And thank God for the Hart name. Because the best cardiologist west of Manhattan found a time for Leighton to come in when she got home from Florida.

But the only thing that still had me holding my breath?

Leighton.

Leighton wasn’tquiet. Leighton was chaos in lipstick.

But right now, she was silent.

Still.

A latte—half-caff, because she was already thinking of the baby—cradled in both hands, her eyes distant as she stared out the window.

She looked beautiful. Radiant. She’d always been gorgeous, but this was something else. The calm, the composure, the way she’d peppered Dr. Swift with every smart, grounded question—it left me stunned.

This wasn’t Carly. This wasn’t twenty-one-year-old me flailing to hold it all together.

I didn’t need to hover. I didn’t need to worry she’d disappear for hours or forget to feed the baby because she was too wrapped up in a phone call. I wouldn’t come home to chaos. To crying kids in a locked car under the August sun because ‘she was just running a quick errand’.

Leighton would never opt out.

This was different. It had to be. The hand she’d set protectively over her still-flat belly said so.

It felt almost criminal to interrupt her peace, but after half an hour of peeling my cuticles bloody, I couldn’t hold it in anymore.

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