Pie nodded, encouraging. “When did that begin?”
Sabine’s lip twitched like she might laugh, but it didn’t come. “Before the baby. Before we ever admitted anything was wrong. I think we both knew it…we just didn’t say it out loud.”
Adair glanced toward her, but Sabine didn’t look at him.
“I would try,” she continued, her voice steadier now, “to explain what I was feeling but it felt like I was speaking through water, like my words got muffled before they ever reached him. He always had somewhere to be. Something to win and I was home, nursing a baby and losing pieces of myself every day.”
“Did you share that with him?” Pie asked gently.
“I tried.” She shook her head. “I cried. Ibegged. I asked for help. But when you love someone that much, you start editing your grief. You start to silence it because you don’t want to look like the problem. So I just…quieted myself.”
“You never expressed it to me the way you did that night on the phone when I was standing in the hallway. You said you hated New York and regretted everything basically.”
“I never said I regrettedeverything,” she snapped, turning toward him now, eyes flashing. “I said I regrettedwhat it had done to me. The isolation. The cold. The damn city swallowing me whole while you were off chasing whatever dream made you feel like a man.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that? I would’ve?—”
“Youwould’vewhat?” she cut in, voice rising. “Listened? You hadn’t listened in months. You barely looked at me. I was invisible, Adair. Pregnant, invisible, and drowning.”
“You weren’t invisible baby.”
“Stop lying!”
Pie held up a hand—not to silence them, but to guide. “You’re doing well. This is about honesty…” she turned to Adair. “Sabine wants you to acknowledge something. Right now, you’re offering a different version of events. That doesn’t make her truth any less valid.”
Adair sighed, his jaw tightening before he spoke. “I’m not saying she doesn’t have the right to feel how she does. I just…I hate that that’s how she felt. Like I really made her feel that way.”
“That’s understandable, Adair,” Pie said gently. “But your emotional reaction to her pain, however strong, doesn’t erase the pain itself. She felt invisible. That hurts you to hear but that hurt? It’s part of the work. Acknowledge it, and then we can start to explore why it happened.”
Sabine looked away again. Her hands trembled in her lap. “You want honesty?” she nodded. “I gave birth to our daughter alone. In a hospital bed, surrounded by strangers.”
Adair’s head dropped.
“She wasn’t breathing when they placed her on my chest,” Sabine said, her voice shaking now. “I didn’t even cry at first. I think my body went into shock. I just…stared. Waiting for her to move,” she was looking down into her open palms as if their deceased baby girl still lie there. “Waiting for someone to say it was a mistake. That there was still time,” she wiped the tears that fell rapidly. “We lost our daughter. Ariyah…” Sabine whispered. “What happened…the name you said we needed to put to our issues…it’s Ariyah. My baby girl.”
The words landed like a brick dropped in still water. Pie’s face didn’t change, but her spine straightened just slightly. “I’m so sorry,” she said softly. “How far along were you?”
“I was full-term,” Sabine answered. Her voice had dropped to a murmur. “Thirty-nine weeks. Her name was Ariyah,” she kept saying her daughter’s name.
“Thank you for sharing her name.”
“I gave birth to her in the hospital,” Sabine continued, her tone clearer now. “Alone.”
Adair’s eyes closed briefly.
“I called him,” she went on, nodding toward Adair but not looking. “Over and over. I texted. I begged but he didn’t answer. My sisters were on FaceTime, but they weren’tthere. Nobody was. Just me…and my dead daughter.”
Adair’s mouth parted. “Sabine?—”
“No.” Her hand shot up without looking at him. “Don’t.”
“Adair, were you aware Sabine was in labor?”
“No,” he said, shame dragging the word down. “But I knew she was close. I told myself I’d call her later.”
“Why?” Pie asked.
He didn’t answer right away. Then, hoarsely: “Because I…I just needed…I needed a night to breathe and feel…” his lip quivered. “Feel something that I was failing to give my wife too,” he admitted shamefully. “I hate myself for it.”