Chapter 2
Ethan's first phone call came twelve minutes after I merged onto the interstate.
I pressed the steering wheel control, letting the call connect through the car speakers.
Ethan's voice exploded through the cabin, raw with fury and breathless panic. "Claire! What the hell is wrong with you?! What did you just post in the family chat?! My mother is having a full-blown panic attack! And why isn't my passcode opening the front door?!"
Through the receiver, the December gale howled viciously, punctuated by the soft, theatrical whimpering of a shivering woman.
"Claire, unlock this damn door right now!" Ethan roared over the wind. "It's barely fifteen degrees out here! Madison is freezing to death in her dress!"
"Then you should have bought her a real coat instead of lending her mine," I replied, my tone level and completely devoid of emotion. "Merry Christmas, Ethan."
"Don't you dare hang up on -- "
I pressed the red disconnect button. The SUV fell into blissful silence.
A fraction of a second later, my phone vibrated on the console. It was an incoming multimedia message from an unsaved number.
I glanced down at a red traffic light.
It was a photo sent from Madison. The picture showed Madison's manicured hand holding a warm ceramic mug on a leather sofa. In the sharp glass reflection of the coffee table below, two positive pregnancy test strips lay strategically displayed next to a prenatal clinic appointment card.
Underneath the photo, Madison had added a single caption:
He didn't tell you, did he? Some Christmas gifts can never be returned, Claire. He belongs to our new family now.
In the passenger seat, Noah shifted under his fleece blanket, clutching his stuffed bear. "Mom? Who keeps calling? Is Daddy mad at us?"
"No, honey. Nobody is mad," I answered softly, reaching over to squeeze his little hand. "Everything is okay."
My chest tightened for a single agonizing second, but my hands on the steering wheel never shook.
Instead, I pulled into the resort's heated underground parking lot, took my phone, and switched the power completely off. I slid it into the deepest zippered pouch of my leather tote.
An hour later, while the blizzard triggered road closures across the mountain passes, Noah and I were warm inside a private penthouse suite.
A massive stone fireplace crackled with fragrant cedar logs. Room service delivered piping-hot clam chowder in bread bowls, roasted garlic potatoes, and oversized mugs of hot cocoa smothered in toasted marshmallows.
Noah stood by the glass balcony doors, watching white snowflakes melt against the steaming outdoor thermal mineral pool. He turned around, his cheeks flushed with pure happiness.
"Mom, this is a hundred times better than Grandma's boring Christmas dinner."
"I know, baby," I whispered, kissing his forehead.
Ninety miles away, Ethan and Madison stood in the dingy, flickering fluorescent lobby of a twenty-five-dollar-a-night roadside motel on the industrial edge of town. The hallway reeked of damp carpets, cheap disinfectant, and stale tobacco.
When Ethan finally managed to hook his phone to the motel's slow Wi-Fi, his screen nearly crashed under sixty unread notifications.
His mother, Helen, had blasted eight frantic voice notes into the family chat, tagging me in all caps:
"Claire Bennett! How dare you humiliate my son and air our private business in front of the whole family! You get your selfish self back here right this instant and open that house before you ruin Christmas for everyone!"
Ethan stood in the freezing, drafty room, his teeth chattering uncontrollably as the wind rattled the single-pane window.