The hospital bag sat by the front door like a witness.
Madison Walker had packed it three days earlier, then unpacked it, then packed it again because the tiny socks made her cry and the paperwork made everything feel too real.
By Thursday morning, the bag was ready.
Her husband was ready too, but not for the same thing.
Ethan rolled a black suitcase down the hallway with one hand and checked his phone with the other.
He wore khaki shorts, a navy polo, and the sunglasses his mother had bought him for Christmas.
Madison stood barefoot in one of his old sweatshirts, forty weeks pregnant, swollen from her ankles to her fingertips, watching him step around the bag that held their son’s first outfit.
“Are you really leaving today?” she asked.
Ethan sighed like she had asked him to cancel a meeting instead of witness the birth of his first child.
