Chapter 2

By the time Nora pulled into our driveway, the sun was up.

She did not ask if I wanted to go home. The doctor said I could not be alone after surgery, so she took my keys and helped me inside.

Every step pulled at my abdomen. Nora supported me with one hand and carried my medication and discharge papers in the other.

“Easy. If Daniel comes home, I’ll deal with him.”

“It’s my marriage.”

“It was your marriage last night too.” She helped me onto the bed. “I’m still the one who stayed.”

She placed my pills, water, and phone on the nightstand, then tucked the bag containing my wedding ring beneath my discharge papers.

I slept three hours before the front door opened downstairs.

Daniel was still wearing yesterday’s white shirt. The collar was creased, his sleeves pushed up, and stubble covered his jaw.

Vanessa’s orange-blossom perfume clung to him, overpowering the antiseptic on my skin.

He stopped in the bedroom doorway and looked at Nora.

“Why are you still here?”

Nora closed the pill organizer. “Because you weren’t.”

Daniel approached the bed.

“The doctor said the procedure went well.”

“Our baby died.”

His jaw tightened. “I know.”

“When did you know?”

“Claire, I just got home. Do we have to do this now?”

Nora stood. I caught her wrist. She studied Daniel before walking out, leaving the door open.

Daniel pulled over a chair.

“Vanessa was in a dangerous state last night. She’d been drinking and saying she didn’t want to live. I couldn’t leave her alone.”

“So you left me alone in surgery.”

“You had a hospital taking care of you.”

I opened the records on my phone.

“At 10:42, I told you the baby was gone. You read it at 10:43. At 11:05, she posted a picture of you in her hotel room without your wedding ring.”

I held out the screen.

Daniel glanced at it, then set the phone back on the nightstand.

“I didn’t know it was that serious.”

“I wrote that I was going into surgery and we had lost the baby.”

“You’d bled before, and every time, you were terrified. I thought the doctors were taking precautions.” He rubbed his forehead. “If you needed me, you should have said, ‘Come now.’ You can’t expect me to guess.”

I pushed aside the blanket and put my feet on the floor. Pain forced me to stop. Daniel reached for me, but I moved away.

“I called because I needed you.”

“You called to tell me what was happening.”

“What’s the difference?”

He walked to the window.

“Vanessa already thinks this is her fault. She cried all morning.” His voice settled into the measured tone he used when he wanted to sound reasonable. “Don’t use the baby’s death as a weapon against her.”

Something hit the kitchen counter outside. Nora did not come in.

I looked at the wrinkles across Daniel’s shirt. He had stayed through Vanessa’s worst night, then come home to explain how clearly I should have said I was losing our child.

“Get out.”

He turned. “This is our bedroom.”

“Then sleep in the guest room.”

He waited for me to take it back. When I did not, he grabbed his keys and left.

I bent for my painkillers. The tablet beneath the pillbox lit up, displaying our shared calendar.

It was open to the day of my high-risk appointment four weeks earlier.

Daniel had claimed an emergency at work and left me to face the scan alone. Now a synced entry I had never seen filled the screen.

Vanessa—car trouble. 9:00 a.m. Daniel picking her up.

My appointment had also been at nine.