She told him about the pregnancy, about how she’d discovered it by accident when she went for her routine check-up, and then about what the doctor had said. They had detected something in the early scan, a detail that needed monitoring–they weren’t sure if Zoe would be able to carry it to full term. She said it plainly, without softening it or dramatizing it. He listened without interrupting.
Rex, at some point during this, had quietly moved from Zoe’s side to George’s. Neither of them remarked on it. When she finished, George said, “How long have you been carrying all of this?” “The letters, eight months. The pregnancy, two weeks.”
He was quiet for a moment. There was a version of this conversation in which he would have talked about being shut out, trust, and the months of watching her not knowing what was happening. He might get there. But what came out first was, “You should have had someone with you at that appointment.” Zoe’s face shifted, not quite breaking, but close. “I know,” she said. “I would have been there,” he said. “I would have wanted to be there.”