Page 23 of The Space He Left
With or without Jack, I was ready to meet our daughter.
Chapter 8
Jack
Everyone kept talking about Madison's Instagram posts, but I didn't understand what the fuss was about.
I'd never been much for social media. Madison used to laugh at me in high school for my complete lack of interest in posting photos or following what other people were doing online. "You're such an old soul, Jackie," she'd tease. "You'd rather live life than document it."
Not much had changed. I still didn't use social media.
Sam had mentioned something about Instagram posts. Harper had shown me her phone once, said something about Madison looking healthy in photos. Even Pete had made some comment about seeing Madison "out and about" online. But I'd dismissed it all as people not understanding how cancer worked, how someone could have good days and bad days, how social media never showed the whole truth.
Madison was fighting for her life. What did it matter if she occasionally felt well enough to post a photo?
I was driving to the city again, my phone buzzing with notifications I ignored while I focused on the road ahead. Madison had called that morning, her voice shaky with anxiety about her surgery scheduled for tomorrow. The big one, the one that would remove the tumor and determine whether the chemotherapy had worked.
"I'm so scared, Jackie," she'd whispered into the phone. "What if they find that it's spread? What if this is the beginning of the end?"
I'd dropped everything, of course. Pete had been in the middle of explaining a problem with the Williams renovation, but I'd barely heard him. All I could think about was Madison, alone in that sterile hotel room, facing the possibility that tomorrow might bring the worst news imaginable.
My phone rang as I hit the city limits. Mom.
"Jack, honey, I've been trying to reach you all week."
"I'm sorry, Mom. Things have been crazy with work and Madison's treatments and..."
"That's what I'm calling about." Her voice had an edge I'd rarely heard before. "Jack, do you realize Harper is two days away from her due date?"
Two days. That was wrong. "We still have the baby shower, the last appointment." Harper had rescheduled it, hadn't she? I needed to check the calendar for the new appointment date when I got home. "It's two weeks away, Mom."
"Two days," my mom repeated.
Not two weeks, not a week. Two days. Damn it, I'd missed the baby shower as well as the appointment. Harper hadn't even said anything. How had I lost track so completely?
"I... she's not due until..." I fumbled for the date, realizing with growing horror that I couldn't remember exactly when Harper was due. "It's soon, but not that soon."
"Jack Henderson, your wife could go into labor at any moment, and you're in the city playing nursemaid to your ex-girlfriend."
"Madison has cancer, Mom. She's having surgery tomorrow. Harper should be more understanding."
"You think your pregnant wife called me to complain about her absent husband?"
The accusation stung because I had assumed that, but my Mom's words suggested I was wrong. "I didn't say that."
"Well, she didn't. That poor girl hasn't said a word to me about any of this. You want to know how I found out? Mrs. Patterson called me. Then the Johnsons. Then three other neighbors. Half the town is worried sick about Harper going through this pregnancy alone."
My stomach dropped. If the whole town was talking, if people were calling my parents in Florida to express concern...
"Harper's not alone. She has me."
"She has Sam," Mom said sharply. "Because her husband is too busy with another woman to be there for the birth of his child."
"It's not like that."
"Isn't it? Jack, I've seen Madison's Instagram posts. That girl doesn't look like she's dying of cancer to me."
I felt my temper flare. First Madison, then Sam, then Pete, now my mother. "You don't know what you're talking about. Social media doesn't show everything. Madison is just trying to keep up appearances, to stay positive during treatment."
