Chapter 2

As the memorial service began to wind down, something inside me shifted. A dull ache bloomed low in my stomach, heavy and insistent, as though invisible hands were tugging me toward the floor.

I told myself it was nothing. Low blood sugar. I had skipped breakfast that morning. I stepped back quietly and pressed my shoulder against the cool wall, trying to breathe through it.

The pain came in slow waves, each one stronger than the last.

Then I smelled it. Blood. Not the sweetness of the carnations piled around Isabelle's coffin. Not the sharp chemical sting of funeral home cleaner. This smell was mine. Familiar and metallic.

I looked down. The black fabric of my dress hid everything, but when I slipped my fingers beneath the hem and touched my inner thigh, they came back wet and warm.

I was pregnant. Standing in that room full of flowers and grief, surrounded by people mourning the woman my husband could never let go of, I understood with absolute clarity that I was carrying his child.

The knowledge hit me like a silent thunderclap. My heart slammed against my ribs, fast and frantic, as though it wanted to break free.

Another cramp rolled through my lower belly. I bit down on my lip and tasted copper.

I was bleeding again.

The memories flooded back from three years ago. The blinding white lights of the emergency room. The cold examination table beneath me.

The doctor's voice, calm and flat: "I'm sorry. We couldn't save it." And Charles, standing at the far end of the hallway, his face hidden in shadow so I couldn't read a single thing he was feeling.

"Nancy?" I hadn't even noticed when Charles turned around, his brows furrowed as he looked at me.

He must've noticed how pale I was, or maybe he saw my hand shaking against the wall. "What's wrong?"

"I'm—" The word barely left my mouth before the room tilted sideways. Everything went dark, and my knees buckled beneath me.

As consciousness slipped away, I felt a pair of hands catch me. Charles's hands. For the first time in so long, he held me.

*****

When I opened my eyes, I was in a hospital bed. The smell of antiseptic filled my nose. An IV bag hung from a metal pole beside me. Outside the window, the sky was a flat, colorless gray.

Everything looked exactly the way it had three years ago. Like someone had found the remote control to my life and hit rewind.

Charles was not there. Instead, Linda Louise sat in the chair next to my bed. She was the Sterling family's housekeeper, a woman in her fifties who had worked for them for twenty years.

She had always kept me at arm's length. Not cruel, not kind. I was like a piece of furniture the Sterlings had acquired and then forgotten they owned.

"Mrs. Sterling, you're awake," Linda said. Her voice was neutral and smooth. "The doctor says you're six weeks pregnant. But there are complications. Signs of a threatened miscarriage. You need bed rest."

Six weeks. I closed my eyes and counted backward in my head.

Six weeks ago, Charles came home late, drunk, and unsteady. He stumbled into my bedroom and called out Isabelle's name in the dark.

That was the only night he had touched me in three years of marriage.

I had known nothing would change afterward. And nothing did.

The next morning, when he woke and saw me lying beside him, his eyes were as cold as a frozen creek. He did not say one word.

He dressed, walked out the door, and stayed away for two full weeks.

He probably didn't remember that night at all. Or maybe he remembered, and he chose to erase it.

"Linda," I said. "Where is Charles?"

"Mr. Sterling is at the funeral home," she answered. "Ms. Sutton's body is being prepared for cremation."

Of course. Isabelle was about to be cremated. I had collapsed before her service ended.

Charles must have told Linda to bring me to the hospital, and then he turned around and went straight back. He did not wait to see if I would wake up.

He never waited for me to wake up.

"Linda, could you give me my phone, please?"

She paused for a moment, then lifted it from the bedside table and placed it in my hand. I unlocked the screen. Three messages from Charles sat waiting.

The first: [What did the doctor say?]

The second: [I'm taking care of things for Isabelle.]

The third was a location pin. The funeral home address. That was his way of telling me where he was.

He wasn't asking about me. He was managing me. He wanted to make sure I wouldn't wake up and call him, interrupting his grief with questions he did not want to answer.

It was like tossing a granola bar to a restless child in the backseat. "Here. Now be quiet."

I stared at those three messages for a long time. Then I closed the conversation and opened the hospital's appointment app.

I booked an appointment with the OB-GYN. Three days from now. But it wasn't for a prenatal checkup.

I opened my browser. My thumbs hovered over the screen for a moment. Then I typed slowly into the search bar: [abortion procedure timing.]