Chapter 2 - THE BABY HE DIDN’T COME HOME FOR
By the time I reached the hospital, my contractions were four minutes apart.
The nurse asked where my husband was.
I looked at the empty chair beside my bed.
“Cancún.”
She paused.
“At thirty-eight weeks?”
“With his mother.”
Her expression said everything she was too professional to say.
Abigail arrived twenty minutes later wearing black slacks, a raincoat, and the expression she usually reserved for people who were about to discover they had underestimated her.
She put my phone on the tray beside me.
“Do you want to call him now?”
I stared at Garrick’s contact photo.
Our wedding day.
His forehead against mine.
His smile looked like evidence from another life.
“Yes.”
The call rang five times.
Voicemail.
I tried again.
Nothing.
Then I opened social media.
Garrick had posted twelve minutes earlier.
He and Eleanor were sitting beneath a white beach umbrella holding frozen drinks.
His caption read:
Finally getting the peace I deserve.
My next contraction hit so hard I nearly dropped the phone.
Abigail took it from me.
“Enough.”
“No.”
I breathed through the pain.
“Send him one message.”
She handed the phone back.
I typed:
I’m in labor. Mercy General. Your daughter is coming.
The message showed delivered.
Then read.
No reply came.
Three hours later, with Abigail holding one hand and a nurse holding the other, my daughter entered the world screaming louder than I ever could.
She weighed seven pounds, six ounces.
Her hair was dark.
Her tiny fingers curled around mine immediately.
And when the nurse laid her against my chest, something inside me became clear.
I had spent years terrified of losing my marriage.
Now I understood I had almost lost myself trying to save it.
I named her Amelia Rose.
At 2:17 a.m., Garrick finally replied.
Hope everything went okay. Mom says flying back early would waste the resort package. Send pictures when you can.
I read the message once.
Then deleted nothing.
Abigail photographed it for the case file.
The following morning, she returned carrying coffee and a thick envelope.
“You need to see this.”
Inside was a document dated eleven days earlier.
Garrick had applied for a $900,000 home-equity loan using our house as collateral.
He had signed his own name.
Then mine.
But that wasn’t what made Abigail look furious.
Attached to the application was a notarized consent form.
The notary was Eleanor.
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And according to the timestamp…
Eleanor had notarized my forged signature while sitting across from me at Sunday dinner.
