Chapter 4
The guard looked at Grant. Then at me. Then quietly stepped back from both of us entirely.
Eleanor's hand had gone rigid at her pearls. "This is completely unnecessary," she said. "Grant would never—"
"Mrs. Mercer senior," Naomi said, not unkindly, "you're welcome to review the transfer dates yourself. Several of them coincide with checks your son wrote from an account you personally co-signed. The court will likely want your statement as well."
Eleanor's mouth closed for the first time all night.
Grant finally opened the folder, his hands not quite steady, and I watched him read the first page, then flip to the second, his face draining of color the way mine was supposed to have drained an hour earlier, in front of the nurses, in front of his mother, in front of the woman carrying his second child.
"Laura," he said, and my name came out of him differently now, stripped of all its earlier cruelty. "We can talk about this."
"We can," I said. "In front of a judge, on the twenty-third, with everything Naomi just handed you as Exhibit A." I glanced past him at Madison, who had gone very quiet, her hand still on her stomach, her eyes flicking between Grant and the folder like she was only now doing the math on exactly what fourteen months of secrecy was about to cost the child she was carrying too. "You wanted witnesses tonight, Grant. You got them. I'd just make sure you're comfortable with what they actually saw."
I walked back to Iris's bedside, past all three of them, and sat down in the chair beside her, taking her small hand again exactly where I'd left it. She stirred slightly, murmured something about strawberries, and settled back into sleep, never once waking to see any part of what her father had tried to build around her hospital bed that night.
May you like
Behind me, I heard Naomi's voice continue, steady and unbothered, laying out the temporary custody terms, the supervised visitation schedule, the freeze on the shared accounts effective as of that afternoon. I heard Grant's voice crack once, trying to argue, then stop. I heard Eleanor's heels retreat down the hallway sometime later, quieter than they'd arrived. I heard Madison say nothing at all.
I did not turn around. I kept my hand around my daughter's fingers, and for the first time in eleven months, I let myself breathe like the fight was actually, finally, mine to win.
