Which was saying a lot. He stood for hours on end doing intricate heart surgeries and had no issues. Seeing a 3D image of a three-month-old fetus should not have him shaking.
Yet he was.
Because the baby was his responsibility.
What he’d once been to his father.
Only when he glanced at the photo he couldn’t find the hatred his father had felt. Nor the resentment his mother had felt. He couldn’t find anything except a deep ache inside.
He was going to be a father.
He’d gotten Savannah pregnant.
He was leaving this evening to move two hours away. Savannah and his baby would be here, in Chattanooga.
That was for the best.
He’d lived the other option and it had been hell.
But seeing his baby, seeing Savannah’s excitement at every image, got to him, because that was something he didn’t have, would never have.
Something he couldn’t let himself have because he couldn’t risk doing to her what his father had done to their family.
Maybe his father had even felt torn at the beginning, had thought he was doing the right thing when he’d married Charlie’s mother. Maybe they’d been happy to begin with. Maybe.
All Charlie could recall were the fights and the tears.
The bitterness and resentment.
The agony that had been his mother’s life.
The misery that had been his life, his father’s life.
The tragic end to his moth
er’s life.
His teeth clenched. He wanted no part of it.
Not for Savannah.
Not for their baby.
Not for himself.
He didn’t want to be like his father, didn’t want Savannah to be like his mother. He glanced at the photo he held. He wanted better for his baby than what he’d had.
The sudden need to do something overwhelmed him.
“Thank you for this,” he told the tech. He nodded to Savannah without meeting her eyes, then left the room.
He heard Savannah apologize to the tech for his abrupt behavior, explaining he had to get back to work.
A memory from the past slammed into him.
A memory of his mother making excuses for his father’s abrupt behavior. To him. To neighbors. To his school teachers.
Funny, he’d forgotten that during his younger days his mother would try to explain away his father’s lack of affection, explain away why he was gone more than he was home. Before the end she’d quit making excuses. For his father and for herself.