"She'd better not," Ben said, but the anger seemed to have left him and although he had intended those words to sound threatening, when they left his lips all he heard in his own voice was desperation. "She's — she can't," he managed, still sounding like he was pleading more than demanding.

If Melody died now, after he'd so recently decided he was going to get his shit together and be a good husband to her, after he'd promised her he would actually try, after he'd told her he loved her — what would have been the point? Not just of the past few months, but of everything? What would have been the point of keeping up the facade for the first eleven months of their marriage, or of lying to November a few hours ago for the express purpose of alienating her? What was the point of keeping Art at arm's length for a year — the point of choosing to stay in the parlor with Melody instead of following him out the front door, when he'd left in January? This was — everything was broken, everything was broken, and if all he had to show for it at the end was a gaping hole in his heart where Melody and his future child had once been, he just — he couldn't. He wouldn't survive that.