CHAPTER 2 — THREE WEEKS
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
I knew Miles.
Not well.
But enough to remember him laughing too loudly at our wedding.
Enough to remember Reid hugging him outside the church.
Enough to remember the phone call three years later.
A highway.
Rain.
A truck crossing the center line.
Miles had died before the ambulance reached the hospital.
I looked at June again.
This time, I saw it.
Not Reid.
Miles.
The same dark eyes.
The same small crease beside the left eyebrow.
It should have made me feel better.
It didn’t.
“Outside,” I said.
Reid nodded.
He carried June into the hall.
My hands started shaking as soon as the door shut.
Theo startled against my chest.
I pulled him closer.
Five minutes later, Mom returned.
She took one look at me.
“What happened?”
“Reid has a niece.”
Mom blinked.
“What?”
“A four-year-old niece nobody knew existed.”
She slowly put the coffee down.
“And she’s here?”
“With him.”
Mom waited.
Then asked carefully, “Is that why he left?”
“I don’t know.”
That was the problem.
I knew nothing.
A few minutes later, Reid returned alone.
“Where’s June?”
“A nurse found a quiet room for her. She fell asleep.”
I looked at him.
He had the nerve to look relieved.
“Start talking.”
Reid pulled the empty chair toward him.
The chair.
His chair.
I stared at it.
“Don’t sit there.”
He froze.
Then pushed it back.
Three weeks ago, he said, he had received a message from a woman named Tessa Harper.
I knew the name vaguely.
Miles had dated a Tessa years earlier.
Reid had never liked talking about that period of his brother’s life.
“Tessa said June was Miles’s daughter.”
“And you believed her?”
“Not immediately.”
“She had proof?”
“Yes.”
“What kind?”
“Photos. Messages. Miles’s name on old medical paperwork. Dates.”
“And you still didn’t tell me?”
“I wanted to confirm everything first.”
I stared at him.
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Last week.”
My voice went cold.
“So for one week, you knew she was your brother’s daughter.”
“Yes.”
“And every night you came home, ate dinner with me, felt our son kicking, asked me whether my back hurt, and never once thought maybe I should know?”
“I thought about it every night.”
“That’s worse.”
He closed his eyes.
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
I kept my voice low because Theo was sleeping.
That somehow made every word sharper.
“You don’t get to disappear during my labor, come back carrying a child who calls you Daddy, and then tell me you’ve secretly known about her for three weeks.”
“I know how it looks.”
“This isn’t about how it looks.”
I pointed toward the hall.
“It’s about the fact that you knew.”
“I was going to tell you.”
“When? Theo’s first birthday?”
“Maren.”
“When?”
He had no answer.
That silence mattered.
I had spent six years trusting Reid because he was not a man who played games.
He paid bills early.
Called when he was late.
Remembered my mother’s birthday.
Showed up when he said he would.
That was who he was.
Or who I thought he was.
“What happened tonight?”
Reid glanced at Theo.
“Tessa collapsed.”
My anger paused.
“What?”
“She called me from the parking lot outside a twenty-four-hour pharmacy. She said she couldn’t breathe. Then the line went dead.”
My stomach tightened.
“I called 911. They traced the call. She was in an ambulance by the time I got there.”
“And June?”
“In the back seat of Tessa’s car.”
I stared at him.
“Alone?”
“A police officer had her.”
Reid rubbed a hand across his face.
“She was screaming for her mother. She didn’t know anyone there.”
“So you stayed.”
“I thought I’d be gone twenty minutes.”
“You promised me twenty minutes.”
“I know.”
“What happened to your phone?”
“Battery died.”
“You couldn’t find another phone in an entire hospital?”
“I did.”
That stopped me.
“What?”
“I called from the nurse’s station.”
My heart kicked.
“I didn’t get a call.”
“You were already in delivery.”
I looked toward my phone on the table.
There were three missed calls from Mom.
Two from an unknown number.
I hadn’t noticed them.
I had been pushing a human being out of my body.
“Why didn’t you leave June with the police?”
Reid’s jaw tightened.
“Because they were trying to determine where she could go.”
“With someone qualified to handle that.”
“Yes.”
“Then why did she need you?”
“Because nobody could reach Tessa’s sister. Her parents are dead. Miles is dead. And according to the emergency paperwork Tessa had filed last week, I was June’s family contact.”
I stared at him.
“You agreed to that?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Three days ago.”
That hurt even more.
He had made himself legally relevant to this child.
And never told me.
“You didn’t just learn she existed,” I said.
“You started becoming part of her life.”
“No.”
“You signed paperwork.”
“I gave Tessa my information in case something happened.”
“Something happened.”
“Yes.”
“And you left me.”
Reid flinched.
Good.
I wanted the words to hurt.
I looked down at Theo.
His tiny mouth moved in his sleep.
“You missed him being born.”
Reid’s eyes filled.
“I know.”
“You didn’t hear his first cry.”
“I know.”
“You weren’t there when they put him on my chest.”
His voice broke.
“I know.”
I hated that he was crying.
I wanted him to be cruel.
Cruel would have been easier.
“So tell me the truth,” I said.
“If you had to make the same choice again tonight, knowing you would miss Theo’s birth…”
Reid didn’t answer.
“Would you still stay with her?”
His face changed.
I could see him trying to find a version of the answer that wouldn’t destroy me.
There wasn’t one.
Finally, he whispered,
“Yes.”
