Chương 3
“What do you need to say?” Elena asked.
His jaw tightened at the formality of the question.
“I made a mistake.”
Mara shifted in the chair.
Daniel glanced at her, then continued. “A terrible mistake. I thought the repeated calls were an overreaction. You had been in the hospital twice this month. Both times they monitored you and sent you home.”
“You rejected them.”
“I was in the middle of a dinner.”
“A birthday party.”
“A private dinner.”
“For Celeste.”
He rubbed a thumb against the edge of his watch. “Yes.”
“Is she your mistress?”
Mara sat up straighter.
Daniel’s eyes flicked toward the monitor, the IV pump, the hallway. He disliked conversations that could be overheard. Elena had watched him delay arguments until elevators opened or waiters approached, then act as though the interruption had ended the subject permanently.
“It isn’t that simple,” he said.
“It can be.”
“Celeste and I have a relationship.”
“What kind?”
“Elena.”
“What kind?”
He looked at the blanket covering her abdomen. “We became close.”
“Did you sleep with her?”
“Yes.”
Mara exhaled through her nose.
Elena waited for the grief she had imagined in other lives—the cinematic collapse, the primal sound, the sense of a floor opening beneath her. Instead, she noticed a fleck of dried pastry on the bakery bag. Daniel had probably bought the croissant on the way from Celeste’s apartment or hotel. The thought was so practical that it made her feel briefly cruel.
“How long?” she asked.
“Eight months.”
She was thirty-one weeks pregnant.
The arithmetic did itself.
Daniel leaned forward. “It began during a very difficult period.”
“For you?”
“For both of us.”
“I was carrying three children.”
“I know that.”
“Do you?”
His face hardened. “You decided to continue the pregnancy after every specialist explained the risks.”
Mara stood so quickly the chair struck the wall.
Elena lifted a hand. “Sit down.”
“Elena—”
“Please.”
Mara sat, but only on the edge.
Daniel’s gaze remained on Elena. He seemed to understand he had said too much, though not yet why.
“You wanted me to reduce,” Elena said.
“We discussed medical options.”
“You wanted one.”
“I wanted you alive.”
“You wanted one healthy child who could be raised by staff without interrupting your calendar.”
“That is vicious.”
“Is it inaccurate?”
“I was afraid.”
The honesty of that stopped her.
Daniel looked away. The city outside the window was brightening into a colorless morning. “No one would tell us what our life would look like. Every appointment was another percentage, another condition, another specialist. You acted as if fear itself were betrayal.”
“I was afraid every day.”
“You didn’t show it.”
“I was trying not to frighten you.”
“You shut me out.”
“You stopped coming to appointments.”
“Because every time I asked a question, you looked at me like I was negotiating which child to abandon.”
“Were you?”
His mouth opened, then closed.
Mara made a small movement, but Elena no longer needed her to speak.
Daniel stood. “I came here to apologize.”
“No. You came here to reduce what happened to a mistake.”
“What do you want me to call it?”
“A choice.”
He looked at her for a long time.
The monitor recorded the increase in her pulse before either of them acknowledged it.
A nurse appeared in the doorway, glanced at the screen, and said, “Mr. Vale, your visit is over.”
Daniel picked up his phone.
“Elena, I will be back this afternoon.”
“Don’t.”
“We need to discuss the children.”
“We do. With attorneys.”
His expression changed at that. Not heartbreak. Calculation.
It was gone quickly, but she had lived with him for nine years. She recognized the private pivot, the moment emotion became strategy.
“Mara,” he said, “I assume you’re advising her.”
“I’m advising you to leave before the nurse helps.”
The nurse did not smile.
Daniel walked out without the flowers or the bakery bag.
Mara waited until the door closed.
“Eight months,” she said.
Elena looked at the croissant bag.
“Throw that away.”
By afternoon, Elena could sit for forty seconds before black spots gathered at the edge of her vision. On the third attempt, Hannah and another nurse transferred her into a wheelchair with a pillow pressed against her abdomen.
The trip to the NICU took six minutes and seemed longer than the surgery.
The elevator smelled faintly of disinfectant and somebody’s tomato soup. A man in maintenance coveralls stepped in on the fourth floor, saw Elena’s hospital gown and IV pole, and backed out again even though there was room.
Upstairs, a receptionist checked Elena’s wristband twice. Hannah helped her wash her hands to the elbows. Elena’s fingers trembled under the warm water.
“You don’t have to touch them today,” Hannah said. “Seeing them is enough.”
“It isn’t.”
“No. But it may have to be.”
The NICU had no dramatic silence. Machines hummed. Nurses spoke in low practical voices. A printer produced labels. Somewhere behind a curtain, a father sang the first line of “You Are My Sunshine” and stopped because he could not remember what came next.
Sophie lay under a clear hood with her mouth slightly open. Her skin was red and thin, her eyelids bluish. A line entered her umbilical cord. Elena had expected love to arrive as recognition, some ancient certainty. What came first was terror.
“She has your chin,” Mara whispered.
“She has no chin.”
“She has the beginning of your chin.”
Claire’s incubator stood beside Sophie’s. She was on a ventilator, her chest moving with mechanical regularity. A small knitted octopus lay outside the incubator, not touching her.
Milo kicked once when Elena approached. The movement was weak and furious.
“That one is already suing somebody,” Mara said.
Elena laughed, and pain cut through her abdomen. She clutched the pillow.
May you like
A neonatal nurse named Isaiah explained numbers, pressures, oxygen settings, feeding plans, infection risks, brain scans, eye exams, weight goals. Elena listened until the words became smooth stones she could no longer hold.
“Can I touch Sophie?” she asked.
