Chapter 4

Six hours after surgery, Daniel parked my wheelchair behind the last pew, beside an orderly holding an empty transport sling, and left the chapel doors open behind us. Every breath pulled at the hidden stitches across my abdomen.

At the front, Claire held Emma beneath a brass cross. My daughter’s blanket had been folded to hide the hospital band around her ankle.

My mother-in-law moved among the pews, passing out cream cards stamped with Emma’s red footprint. Beneath each print, she wrote Claire’s surname with her violet fountain pen. Her engraved initials flashed between her fingers.

“A blessing should give her a proper beginning,” she said. “Keep one. Emma will want to see how loved she was.”

Claire stared down at the bundle. “We shouldn’t be doing this here.”

“This is family,” my mother-in-law replied. She pressed another card into an aunt’s hand. “There is nothing shameful about welcoming a child.”

I pushed the wheels. Pain tightened through me so sharply that my hands slipped against the rubber rims.

“Move.”

Daniel stepped behind the chair and locked both handles in his grip. “You’re not supposed to be out of bed.”

“Then take me back with my daughter.”

“Please don’t make a scene during the blessing.”

The words came out level and reasonable, the way he always said cruel things so that objecting to them would sound shrill. I drove my heel against the floor, forcing the chair forward half an inch before his weight stopped it.

At the altar, the chaplain hesitated. “Which of you is Emma’s mother?”

“I am,” I said.

Claire’s shoulders drew tight beneath her pale coat. She did not turn around. She looked at Daniel instead of me.

My mother-in-law answered louder. “Claire is the mother named on the authorization.”

“That signature was written before I went into labor.”

A card slipped from someone’s hand and landed faceup in the aisle. Violet ink shone beneath the footprint, still wet enough to smear.

Daniel bent near my ear. “We can discuss this privately.”

“You planned it privately.”

The orderly shifted the empty sling over one arm. “Sir, take your hands off the chair.”

Daniel straightened. “This is my wife.”

“That doesn’t make the chair yours.”

His fingers loosened. I rolled past him, each turn of the wheels dragging fire through my stitches. Nobody resumed the prayer.

My mother-in-law reached the fallen card first. She crouched and lifted it by the corner, then raised the pen as if one more careful stroke could close the seam she had torn open.

I stopped beside her and covered the card with my palm.