Zayden's POV
The insurance company needs Jocelyn's updated prenatal care documentation.
Simple request, simple task. A form I need to scan and email before five o'clock. Except our filing system is Jocelyn's domain.
I text her: Where do you keep medical paperwork? Insurance needs your OB forms.
She responds five minutes later: Second drawer, filing cabinet, under "Medical - Current."
The filing cabinet sits in the corner of our bedroom. Alphabetized sections, labeled tabs, everything exactly where it should be. I find "Medical - Current" immediately.
Pull out the folder. The doctor's note sits on top, dated five days ago. Official letterhead from Dr. Rebecca Reeves, OB-GYN.
Patient: Jocelyn Hartwell-Wolfe Diagnosis: High-risk pregnancy, pre-eclampsia precursors Recommendations: Modified bed rest (3 days/week work from home). Maximum 4 hours daily at the office. Weekly monitoring appointments. Immediate cessation of high-stress activities.
Blood pressure monitoring twice daily. Risk Assessment: Elevated. Patient advised of potential complications including seizures, organ failure, emergency delivery. Mandatory compliance required.
I read it three times. Then once more because my brain refuses to process what my eyes are telling me.
High-risk. Pre-eclampsia. Organ failure. Seizures.
Five days ago. She's known for five days and didn't tell me.
I sit on the edge of our bed, still holding the paper. The memory surfaces like a knife—her in the kitchen two nights ago, insisting she was fine.
Yesterday, standing in her office for six hours straight. Last night in bed, my hand on her stomach while we talked about baby names and she laughed at my objection to the name Ethel.
The honesty pact we made in her office was a lie. The tears, the promise to carry it together, she was already breaking it.
The hurt hits first. Sharp, disorienting. We promised transparency. Not just recently—we've been promising it since we rebuilt our lives. After Harrison's manipulations, after the trial, after every crisis that nearly destroyed us.
Then the fear comes, rolling over the hurt like a tidal wave that doesn't care about my feelings.
Seizures. Organ failure. Emergency delivery.
She could die. Our baby could die. And she's been hiding it while working twelve-hour days and absorbing Aiden's attacks and standing in board meetings defending her right to lead.
I need to talk to someone before I confront her and say something that turns my fear into a weapon.
Landon answers on the second ring. "What's wrong?"
"She's hiding her health from me." The words come out raw. "High-risk pregnancy. Pre-eclampsia. She's known for five days, Landon."
Landon’s silent for a moment. "Okay. Before you confront her, think about why someone would hide a medical diagnosis from their spouse."
"Because they don't trust them."
"Or because they're scared of the response.”
I stand, pace our small bedroom. "Scared of how I'll react?"
"Jocelyn built that foundation from nothing. It's not just her job—it's her identity, her proof that she's more than someone's wife and mother." Landon's voice is careful, precise. "If you know she's high-risk, what's the first thing you'd want to do?"
"Pull her out. Take over her responsibilities. Make sure she rests."
"Exactly. And from her perspective, that's not protection, that's erasure. Every decision made for her instead of with her. Every responsibility transferred without her consent. Marcus just spent an entire board meeting arguing that pregnancy makes her unfit to lead. How do you think it feels to have her own body confirming his argument?"
"She could have seizures, Landon."
"Which is exactly why she needs to be part of the conversation about how to handle it. Not informed of decisions you've made without her."
"So what do I do?"
"Lead with the scared part, not the angry part. Anger makes people defensive." He pauses. "And Zay—remember that you've done the same thing. She learned this pattern from watching you."
After we hang up, I sit at the kitchen table with the doctor's note in front of me. Not hidden. Placed where she'll see it the moment she walks in.
Twenty minutes to figure out how to say "I'm terrified of losing you" without it coming out as "I'm furious you lied."
Twenty minutes to remember that Landon's right—she learned protection through withholding from the person who's perfected it. Me.
The front door opens at 6:40. Jocelyn walks in carrying her bag, already talking about something Maya said.
She sees me at the table. Sees the folder.
Her face goes pale in stages. Recognition. Understanding. Then something that looks like relief—as if the weight of carrying this secret was heavier than whatever comes next.
"High-risk pregnancy." I keep my voice quiet. "You were going to tell me when?"
Her mouth opens. Closes. Every rehearsed explanation evaporating under the weight of my stare.
"I was waiting for the right moment."
"The right moment."
I stand, but don't cross to her. Maintain the distance because closing it right now would feel like either comfort or confrontation, and I need it to be neither.
"We're together practically twenty-four-seven, Jocelyn. And you’re telling me there wasn't the right moment?"
"You were stressed about the board meeting…"
"I'm always stressed. You're always stressed. If we wait for stress-free moments to be honest, we'll never speak again."
She sets down her bag, doesn't move toward me.
"I'm about to say something hypocritical," I say. "I know I am. I've hidden things from you before with the same justification. But I need to say it anyway."
She waits.
"We promised each other. Two days ago, in your office. No more withholding. No more protective silence." I gesture at the doctor's note. "Seizures. Organ failure. Emergency delivery. You could die, Jocelyn. And I've been sleeping next to you for five nights not knowing."
The guilt hits her visibly—I watch it move across her face like a physical blow.
"I'm sorry." Her voice cracks. "I was afraid."
"Of the diagnosis?"
"Of you." The admission costs her everything. "Of what you'd do with the information. Of watching you decide I couldn't handle my own life anymore. Of Marcus being right."
"Marcus isn't right about anything."
"But my body is proving his argument." She sinks into the chair across from me. "Every time my blood pressure spikes, every time the doctor adds another restriction, every time my own biology fails me—it confirms what he's been saying. That I'm too pregnant, too fragile, too compromised to lead."
The word hangs between us. Compromised. Marcus's word, now living inside my wife like a parasite she can't expel.
"You're not compromised." I round the table, crouch in front of her chair. Take her hands, which are cold and trembling. "You're sick. There's a difference. And sick people don't get better by pretending they're fine."
"Telling you meant giving up control."
"Telling me meant letting me help carry it." I press my forehead against our joined hands. "The same thing you asked me to do two days ago. The same promise I made and you made and we both keep breaking because being honest feels more dangerous than being alone."
She's crying now—quiet tears, the exhausted kind that don't have the energy for sobs.
"I'm scared," she whispers. "Not of the diagnosis, of losing everything I am besides pregnant."
"You won't lose anything. I swear to you—we'll figure out modified bed rest that doesn't mean modified identity. You lead from home three days a week. Foundation decisions still go through you. Nothing changes except where your body is while your brain runs the show."
"You really think that's possible?"
"I think we survived Harrison and a mob trial and coordinated attacks from my own brother. I think modified bed rest is the easiest problem we've ever solved." I look up at her. "But I can't help solve it if you don't tell me it exists."
She nods, wipes her face and takes a breath that shudders but holds.
"152 over 96," she says quietly.
"What?"
"Three days ago. After the volunteer orientation. My blood pressure was 152 over 96."
The number makes my chest constrict. That's not elevated—that's emergency territory.
"What is it now?"
"I don't know. I stopped checking because the numbers scared me more than not knowing."
"Then we check. Together. Right now."
I get the blood pressure monitor from the bathroom. Strap it on her arm. We sit at the kitchen table—the same table where Mia eats breakfast and does homework and draws purple tigers—and wait for the numbers.
138/88.
High. But lower than 152. Trending in a direction that might be called hope if you squint.
"We'll get it down," I say.
"Together?"
"Together."
She leans forward, rests her head against my chest. I hold her and the blood pressure cuff and the doctor's note and every fear I've been carrying since I opened that folder.