Chương 4
Nora pressed forward, then stopped.
“Do you think he knows I found the folder?”
“Not yet.”
“He thinks this is about the trip.”
“That may help us for a few hours.”
Nora’s fingers hovered above the screen.
“Would it be illegal to let him keep thinking that?”
“No.”
“Would it be cruel?”
Marianne considered the question longer than Nora expected.
“It would be strategic.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
“No,” Marianne said. “It was not.”
By sunrise, Nora was eight centimeters dilated.
Ethan had called nineteen times.
Diane had sent twelve messages, each one moving through a predictable sequence: command, outrage, accusation, self-pity, threat, and finally concern polished enough to be shown to other people.
We are worried about your state of mind.
Please tell us where you are.
Ethan deserves to know whether his child is safe.
This behavior is deeply alarming.
Nora read them all. Then she put the phone away.
A nurse named Patrice came in to adjust the monitors. She had a small gold cross at her neck and the patient expression of someone who had watched wealthy families discover that pain did not respect status.
“Baby looks good,” she said. “You’re doing the work.”
Nora gripped the rail through another contraction.
“I’m not sure I agreed to this part.”
“Most people don’t read the full contract.”
When the pressure passed, Nora said, “My husband left for Bermuda.”
Patrice checked the IV line. “Then he’s missing a lot.”
The answer was so simple that Nora nearly cried.
She had expected judgment, pity, perhaps anger on her behalf. Instead, the nurse had stated the loss accurately. Ethan was missing a lot. Not because Nora had excluded him. Not because Diane’s hotel deposit had failed. He was absent from the room where his daughter’s heart beat through a speaker while morning reached the windows.
That was his action, not Nora’s punishment.
The baby was born at 9:17 a.m.
For several minutes the room became noise and instruction. Nora pushed until every bone in her body seemed to separate. She heard Patrice say, “Again,” heard Marianne somewhere near the wall telling Elena to breathe, though Elena was not the one giving birth.
Then a cry rose above everything.
The child was placed against Nora’s chest, wet and furious, with dark hair flattened to her head and one fist tucked beneath her chin.
Nora stared.
The baby’s face was red, unfamiliar, and completely specific. There was a tiny notch in the left earlobe. Her fingers opened and closed against Nora’s skin.
“Hello,” Nora said.
It was the least impressive word she had ever spoken and the only one she had.
Elena cried loudly enough for everyone.
Marianne stood at the foot of the bed with one hand over her mouth.
“What’s her name?” Patrice asked.
Nora looked down at the baby.
She and Ethan had argued for months. He wanted Victoria because it sounded substantial. Diane preferred Caroline, after herself, although Caroline was her middle name and not one she had used in decades. Nora had kept returning to June, for the month when her grandmother used to open every window in the house.
Ethan had dismissed it as a nickname.
“June,” Nora said.
The name settled easily.
June Bellweather Mercer.
Nora did not know yet which surname would remain, but she allowed both for the moment. A newborn did not need to carry the full weight of adult decisions before her first feeding.
Ethan called while June slept beneath Nora’s chin.
Nora let it ring.
An hour later, Diane posted a photograph from the airport lounge. She and Ethan sat beside tall glasses of orange juice, both wearing sunglasses. The caption read: Much-needed family time before our newest blessing arrives.
One of Nora’s cousins sent her a screenshot with the message, Is this old?
Nora did not answer.
By afternoon, people knew June had been born.
They learned because Elena texted her own daughter, who told an aunt, who congratulated Diane in a private family group. Diane then called the hospital and demanded information. The hospital gave her none.
At 2:06 p.m., Ethan sent a message.
You had my daughter without telling me.
Nora read the sentence several times.
Then she typed: She arrived this morning. She is healthy.
His reply appeared immediately.
I’m getting the first flight back.
Nora showed Marianne.
“He can visit,” Nora said.
Marianne looked surprised. “You do not have to decide that now.”
“I’m not keeping him from her.”
“Visitation and access to you are separate matters.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Nora looked at June, whose mouth moved in sleep.
“I don’t want the first thing I do as her mother to be revenge.”
Marianne sat beside her.
“Then do not make it revenge. Make it a boundary.”
They arranged for Ethan to visit at the hospital with a nurse present and without Diane. He was not to remove June from the room. He was not to discuss finances or the marriage. If he did, security would end the visit.
Nora expected him that evening.
He did not arrive.
His flight was delayed, then canceled. He texted that he was trying another route. At midnight, he sent a photograph of an airport departure board, as if she had asked for proof.
Diane sent no congratulations.
The next morning, a florist delivered white roses from Ethan’s company. The card had been typed.
To my beautiful wife and daughter. I am coming home.
Nora asked the nurse to remove them. The perfume filled the room and made her nauseated.
Ethan arrived thirty-six hours after June’s birth.
He entered wearing the same salmon shirt, now creased beneath the arms. He carried no flowers, no diaper bag, and no visible anger. Without the sunglasses, he looked younger and more frightened.
A nurse stood near the door.
Nora sat in the hospital bed with June against her shoulder.
Ethan stopped three feet away.
For a moment, he seemed unable to speak.
May you like
“That’s her?”
Nora almost said, Who else would it be? Instead she nodded.
