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“Doctor?” the nurse asked quietly.
Her voice brought him back, but not completely.
Joanna noticed then. She was exhausted, pale, her hair damp at her temples, her body still trembling from labor. But a mother sees everything when it comes to her child.
“Is something wrong?” she whispered.
Robert opened his mouth.
No sound came out.
The nurse drew the baby closer to her chest. “Dr. Wright?”
Robert wiped quickly at his eyes, as though ashamed of them. His hand shook so badly that he tucked it into the pocket of his coat.
“No,” he said at last, but the word sounded too fragile. “No, nothing is wrong with the child.”
Joanna’s expression tightened. “Then why are you crying?”
The room went quiet.
Outside in the hallway, someone laughed. A cart squeaked past the door. Somewhere, another baby began to cry. Ordinary hospital sounds, careless and distant, while Joanna’s entire world balanced on Robert Wright’s answer.
He looked at her chart again.
Joanna Ellis. Twenty-eight. No emergency contact listed. No spouse present. Father of child: not provided.
His eyes moved back to her face.
“May I ask,” he said carefully, “the father’s name?”
Joanna’s fingers curled into the sheets.
The question struck harder than it should have. She had spent seven months learning how not to flinch at his name. She had spoken it to landlords, nurses, government forms, and strangers who assumed there was a man somewhere waiting to arrive. Every time, it left a small cut.
“Why?” she asked.
Robert swallowed. “Because I need to know.”
The nurse shifted uncomfortably. “Doctor, perhaps this can wait.”
“No,” Joanna said, her voice still weak but firm. “If you’re asking because something is wrong with my baby, then you tell me now.”
Robert’s face changed. Not into the calm doctor’s mask everyone knew, but into the face of an old man suddenly carrying a weight too heavy to hide.
“Nothing is wrong with him,” he said again. “But I believe…” He stopped. “I believe I may know his family.”
Joanna stared.
His family.
For months, that word had meant only her. Her hands over her stomach. Her voice in an empty room. Her body standing for hours at the diner until her ankles swelled. Her alone, always alone.
“The father’s name,” Robert repeated gently.
Joanna looked toward the baby, still cradled in the nurse’s arms.
“Logan,” she said.
Robert closed his eyes.
The nurse’s face went still.
“Logan Wright?” Robert asked.
Joanna’s heart slammed once against her ribs.
She had never told the hospital Logan’s last name. She had refused, not out of pride, but because writing it down felt like giving him a place he had abandoned.
“How do you know that?” she whispered.
Robert opened his eyes.
Because he is my son.
The words should have been simple.
Instead, they came from him like a confession.
Joanna did not move.
For a second, she thought the exhaustion had finally broken something inside her. Perhaps she had misheard. Perhaps there was another Logan Wright somewhere, another man with the same careless hands and the same soft way of leaving.
But Robert’s expression confirmed everything.
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