Melanie Moreland

“My wife—I got a call—she’s having the baby today!”

“And the name?”

I stared at her, my brow furrowed. “We don’t know the name. The baby hasn’t been born yet.”

She scowled and opened her mouth, but I kept talking.

“How would I know the name? We didn’t want to know the sex. We wanted it to be a surprise. But she’s gone into labor early. I got a call. I need to find her.”

“Your wife’s name, sir.”

I sucked in a deep breath. Well, that made more sense.

“Katharine—but I call her Katy. She likes that better.”

It had felt odd the first time I talked to her stomach. I felt like an idiot, lying beside her with my hand on her skin, muttering about silly things. Except, I liked it. I started reading books, humming music, talking about how much fun we were going to have when he or she was born—anything to connect myself to the life growing inside Katy