Chương 6
Then away.
“It said to ask you what you signed before Mia was born.”
The silence that followed was different.
Not confusion.
Recognition.
“Claire?”
When she finally spoke, her voice was barely audible.
“Who sent that?”
“You know what it means.”
“Ethan.”
“No.”
His hand tightened around the phone.
“Do not do this again.”
“Do what?”
“Make me feel crazy for noticing something is wrong.”
Another silence.
Then Claire said something that made him forget the airport, the taxi, the people walking around him.
“I signed it because the hospital told me there was no other choice.”
Ethan felt the ground shift.
“What did you sign?”
“I can’t talk about this over the phone.”
“Why?”
“Because if they know you asked me, they’ll know you found out.”
The words came too quickly.
Too naturally.
Like she had been afraid of this exact moment.
“Who are they?”
Claire did not answer.
“Claire.”
“I’m sorry.”
The apology was different from Lena’s.
Not fearful.
Broken.
“I should have told you.”
Ethan looked down at Mia.
His daughter slept peacefully.
Unaware of the adults around her fighting over pieces of her own story.
“Told me what?”
Claire breathed in.
Then she said the one thing Ethan had not expected.
“Before Mia was born, St. Anne’s asked me to sign a temporary guardianship agreement.”
Ethan stopped moving.
“Why?”
“I was sick.”
“What?”
“After delivery.”
Her voice shook.
“I had complications.”
Ethan remembered the hospital.
The doctors telling him Claire needed rest.
The nurses asking him to step outside.
The hours he spent sitting alone while forms appeared in front of him.
“I thought it was medical paperwork.”
Claire swallowed.
“They told me it was standard.”
“And you signed?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because later I found out it wasn’t standard.”
The line went silent.
A message appeared on Ethan’s phone.
Another unknown number.
He looked down.
This time there was no text.
Only a photo.
A picture of Claire standing outside a building.
Taken that morning.
Ethan’s breath stopped.
“Claire.”
“What?”
“Where are you?”
She hesitated.
Then whispered.
“Outside St. Anne’s.”
The call ended before he could respond.
Ethan kept the phone against his ear even after the call ended.
He waited for Claire’s voice to return, for some explanation, for anything that would make the last thirty seconds feel less impossible.
Nothing came.
The screen showed only the time and a missed connection.
Lena watched him carefully.
“What happened?”
Ethan looked toward the hallway doors.
“She’s here.”
“Claire?”
He nodded.
“She’s at St. Anne’s.”
Lena’s expression tightened.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
The answer sounded different this time.
Not like confusion.
Like a decision he was tired of making.
He put the phone away and looked at the hospital entrance.
“I’m done waiting for people to tell me pieces of my own life.”
Lena did not argue.
She just followed when he started walking.
Inside St. Anne’s, the air smelled like disinfectant and coffee that had been sitting too long.
Ethan remembered the smell from the night Mia was born.
Back then, he had hated it because it meant waiting.
Waiting for nurses.
Waiting for doctors.
Waiting for someone to tell him whether his family was okay.
Now he hated it because it meant he had been standing in the same kind of uncertainty all over again.
At the reception desk, a woman looked up from her monitor.
“Can I help you?”
“I’m looking for Claire Cole.”
The receptionist’s fingers paused over the keyboard.
“Are you family?”
“Yes.”
The woman glanced at Mia sleeping against Ethan’s chest.
Then she looked back at him.
“Immediate family?”
Ethan felt the question land.
“Yes.”
The receptionist entered something into the system.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t confirm whether someone is here.”
“She called me from this building.”
“I understand.”
“No, I don’t think you do.”
His voice stayed controlled, but his hand tightened around the strap of the baby carrier.
“My wife is here, my daughter was born here, and I have spent two weeks finding out that strangers know things about my family that I don’t.”
The receptionist looked uncomfortable.
She was not the enemy.
Ethan knew that.
But knowing did not make the frustration disappear.
“I’m sorry.”
He closed his eyes briefly.
“Everyone keeps saying that.”
A security officer nearby looked over.
Lena stepped closer.
“Ethan.”
He lowered his voice.
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not.”
The honesty stopped him.
For a second, he almost said something sharp.
Then Mia shifted against him.
He looked down.
The anger left his face.
Not because the problem was gone.
Because she was there.
A nurse walking past noticed the baby.
“First newborn?”
Ethan looked up.
“No.”
The answer surprised him.
Then he corrected himself.
“Yes.”
The nurse smiled slightly.
“That’s usually how it feels.”
She continued down the hallway.
A normal conversation.
A normal moment.
It almost hurt more than the fear.
Lena watched him.
“You almost smiled.”
“I know.”
“That’s allowed.”
“I’m aware.”
She looked at him.
“You say that like someone accused you of something.”
Ethan looked away.
“Sometimes it feels like if I stop paying attention for one second, something happens.”
Lena did not answer.
She understood too quickly.
A few minutes later, a message appeared on Ethan’s phone.
Not from the unknown number.
From Claire.
The message contained a location inside the hospital.
Basement level.
Records archive entrance.
Ethan showed Lena.
“She wants us there.”
Lena frowned.
“Why would she send that instead of coming to you?”
“Because she thinks someone is watching.”
“That means she may be right.”
Ethan looked at the elevator.
Or she may know more than she’s saying.
He did not say the second part aloud.
But Lena saw it anyway.
“You don’t trust her.”
“I love her.”
The answer came immediately.
Then he looked down.
“That’s different.”
Lena nodded slowly.
“Yes.”
They took the elevator down.
Neither of them spoke.
The numbers above the door changed one floor at a time.
Four.
Three.
Two.
One.
Ground.
May you like
Basement.
The doors opened.
