Chapter 2 - “You used Mom's name?”
“She cried for three hours.”
“Mom cries when grocery stores rearrange the produce section.”
“She still earned it.”
Rebecca laughed quietly.
Then she glanced toward Dominic.
He had returned to his place near the window.
“How much does he know?”
“Everything important.”
Dominic looked over.
“Not everything.”
Rebecca gave him a suspicious stare.
“What does that mean?”
“It means Claire is entitled to secrets.”
I looked between them.
“Please don't begin whatever this is.”
Rebecca raised both hands.
“I didn't say anything.”
“You were about to.”
“I was evaluating.”
Dominic almost smiled.
“I survived.”
Before Rebecca could answer, my phone buzzed.
A message.
Not from Grant.
From an unknown number.
I hesitated before opening it.
Claire, it's Sienna. I know I have no right to ask you for anything, but please don't ignore this.
There are things about your divorce you were never shown. I should have told you months ago.
I stared at the screen.
Rebecca leaned closer.
“What?”
I handed her the phone.
Her face tightened.
Dominic did not ask to see it.
That was another thing about him.
He waited.
“Sienna?” Rebecca whispered.
“Yes.”
“The woman getting married right now?”
“Apparently.”
As if summoned by the thought, another message arrived.
I'm not asking you to forgive me.
But before Grant makes decisions about your daughter, you need to know what was removed from the medical file his attorneys received.
The room seemed to narrow.
I read the sentence twice.
“What medical file?” Rebecca asked.
“My fertility records.”
I felt cold despite the warm blanket.
During the final year of my marriage, Grant and I had undergone testing.
Months of appointments.
Blood tests.
Scans.
Specialists.
Every result had seemed to arrive with another question.
Grant had attended the first two appointments.
After that, work always interfered.
His assistant handled the calendar.
Sienna.
I looked at the message again.
Dominic finally spoke.
“Did you ever receive complete copies?”
“I thought I did.”
“Thought?”
“The clinic sent everything to our family office. Grant's legal team organized the records during the divorce.”
Rebecca's eyes widened.
“You never requested them directly?”
“No.”
At the time, I had barely been sleeping.
Grant had already moved into a hotel.
Rumors about Sienna were spreading.
Then an article appeared describing our “private struggle with infertility.”
Two days later came a second story quoting an unnamed friend of Grant's saying I had “accepted that motherhood might never be possible.”
I had never said that.
But by then I was too exhausted to fight every sentence.
Sienna texted again.
Your results were not the reason pregnancy wasn't happening. There was another recommendation in the physician's notes. Grant saw it.
I saw it. It disappeared before the settlement discussions.
I stopped breathing for a moment.
Rebecca read over my shoulder.
“What recommendation?”
Another message appeared.
Repeat testing for both partners. The doctor specifically recommended further evaluation for Grant.
My hand tightened around the phone.
Years of memory rearranged themselves.
Grant telling me my body had failed us.
Grant saying perhaps I had waited too long to prioritize family.
Grant's mother gently suggesting I should stop putting myself through treatments if nature had “made its decision.”
All while another recommendation had existed.
Testing for him.
“Claire?”
Rebecca's voice sounded far away.
Dominic stood but remained where he was.
“I need a minute.”
“Take one,” he said.
I stared at Eleanor.
My daughter.
The daughter I had conceived naturally after years of uncertainty, during the final weeks of a marriage that was already collapsing.
I had assumed it was luck.
Timing.
An inexplicable gift arriving after I stopped expecting one.
Maybe it still was.
But the story Grant had told the world suddenly looked even less certain.
Rebecca squeezed my hand.
“Don't answer Sienna today.”
“I wasn't going to.”
“Good.”
My phone rang.
Grant again.
I declined it.
It rang immediately.
Declined.
Then another unknown number appeared.
Dominic glanced at the screen.
“You can turn it off.”
I nearly did.
Instead, I muted it and placed it face down.
“What if he comes here?”
“He doesn't know which hospital,” Rebecca said.
I looked at her.
“He can find out.”
Dominic answered calmly.
“Then reception will tell him whether you're accepting visitors.”
There was no menace in his voice.
Only practicality.
“And if you're not,” he continued, “he waits until you are.”
I nodded.
That sounded reasonable.
Reasonable was exactly what I needed.
For the next hour, nothing dramatic happened.
That was the strangest part.
Eleanor ate.
Rebecca complained about hospital coffee.
Dominic took a business call in the hallway and returned with sandwiches because none of us had remembered lunch.
My mother arrived wearing two different earrings and cried so hard at the sight of her granddaughter that Rebecca immediately said, “See?
Produce section.”
Mom ignored her.
She held Eleanor carefully.
“She has your father's eyebrows.”
“Everyone keeps assigning her features,” I said.
“It is our right.”
“She's barely been here half a day.”
“Then we have lost valuable time.”
Even Dominic laughed.
For a little while, the world became small and kind.
Then, shortly after four, my nurse entered.
“Claire? There's someone downstairs asking to leave something for you.”
My body stiffened.
“Who?”
“She says her name is Sienna Vale.”
Rebecca nearly dropped her coffee.
“She's here?”
The nurse nodded.
“She said she doesn't need to come up. She only wants to leave an envelope.”
“Is she alone?”
“As far as I know.”
I looked toward the rain-streaked window.
Grant's wedding ceremony had been scheduled for three.
Sienna should have been married by now.
“Did she say anything else?”
The nurse hesitated.
“She said you would understand why she couldn't mail it.”
I looked at Rebecca.
Then Dominic.
“I don't want her upstairs.”
“Then she doesn't come upstairs,” Dominic said.
“But I'll take the envelope.”
Rebecca stood.
“No. I'll get it.”
“You don't know what she looks like.”
“I have the internet.”
Despite everything, that almost made me smile.
Dominic rose.
“I'll go with Rebecca.”
“I don't need protection.”
“No,” he said. “You need witnesses.”
That was different.
I nodded.
They left.
My mother sat beside me holding Eleanor.
For several minutes, neither of us spoke.
Then Mom said, “I owe you an apology.”
I turned.
“For what?”
“I believed some of what Grant said.”
My throat tightened.
She stared at the baby.
“Not the ugly things. Never those. But I believed that perhaps you had shut us out because you were ashamed.
I thought if I kept pretending everything was normal, you'd come back when you were ready.”
“Mom—”
“I should have asked better questions.”
“You asked.”
“Not enough.”
I watched her stroke Eleanor's blanket.
“We all made mistakes.”
“Yes.”
Her eyes met mine.
“But not all mistakes are equal.”
I thought of Grant.
Of Sienna.
Of myself.
“No,” I said. “They're not.”
The door opened.
Rebecca entered first.
Dominic followed carrying a large cream envelope.
Rebecca looked unsettled.
“She left.”
“Did you speak to her?”
“A little.”
“And?”
Rebecca sat.
“She wasn't wearing a wedding dress.”
I blinked.
“What?”
“She was wearing a gray coat.”
My mother frowned.
“Perhaps she changed.”
Rebecca shook her head.
“She said there wasn't a wedding.”
The room went silent.
I stared at her.
“What do you mean?”
“She walked away before the ceremony.”
A complicated feeling passed through me.
Not satisfaction.
Not relief.
Something closer to confusion.
“Because of the baby?”
“No.”
Rebecca looked at the envelope in Dominic's hand.
“She said she had already decided last night.”
Dominic placed the envelope on my bedside table.
Across the front, in careful handwriting, was my name.
Claire Kingsley had been crossed out.
Underneath, Sienna had written:
Claire Bennett.
My own name.
The one I had taken back after the divorce.
My fingers traced the letters.
“What did she say?”
Rebecca hesitated.
“She said Grant spent the morning talking about winning.”
I frowned.
“Winning what?”
“You.”
“That makes no sense.”
“She said that's why she left.”
Dominic leaned against the wall.
“Apparently Grant had been talking for weeks about inviting you to the reception. Sienna thought it was guilt.
She realized this morning it wasn't.”
“What was it?”
Rebecca's expression was sad rather than angry.
“He wanted proof that you were still hurt.”
May you like
I closed my eyes.
That sounded like Grant.
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