She had asked Mara to accept money and stop contacting Julian, because his future was supposedly too promising to disrupt.
I imagined a frightened new mother alone in a hospital bed, facing the family that should have welcomed her child.
Chloe asked whether my mother had told her own daughter-in-law about Sadie before she agreed to years of fertility treatment.
My mother said Chloe would never have married Julian if she had known, as though that justified withholding the truth.
Chloe answered that people could survive painful truths, but deception destroyed the ability to choose what life they wanted.
Our mother called her ungrateful, and I ended the call before she could turn the blame toward the woman holding our baby.
The following morning, I awoke to sunlight across the hospital curtain and Chloe still sitting beside the bassinet.
She had barely slept, but each time the baby stirred she leaned forward with a tenderness that steadied my breathing.
