Hallie was crying with mascara running down her face. “It’s allergies.”
“Hallie, your mascara is on your chin.”
“I have sensitive eyes. It’s a medical condition.”
Tara handed me a bag that weighed more than it should have. Inside was a first aid kit, six months of prenatal vitamins organized by week in labeled bags, a folder of baby-safe recipes, and a handwritten note.Call me anytime. I mean it.
Finneas drove. Grandma waved from the porch until we turned the corner. I watched in the side mirror until the house disappeared behind the trees.
The highway hummed under the tires. Mountains flattened into farmland, farmland into suburbs. My hand was on my belly, the ultrasound photos in my bag, Atlanta getting closer with every mile.
“Thank you,” Finneas said. “For giving me this chance.”
“Don’t waste it.”
“I won’t.”
I leaned my head against the window and closed my eyes. The baby was pressing on my bladder, my back ached. I fell asleep somewhere on the highway with my hand on my stomach and the sun warm on my face, heading back to the city I’d left in pieces.
Not sure if I was brave or stupid for going back. I’d figure it out when I got there.
35
— • —
Andrea
The estate looked bigger than I remembered.
We pulled up in the late afternoon, the sun cutting low across the front of the house, and I sat in the passenger seat staring at it through the windshield. The last time I was here I’d been happy. Reading in the library, sleeping in his bed, stealing kisses in the kitchen while coffee brewed. Falling in love with a man who was about to break me. The stone facade and the tall windows and the ridiculous fountain in the circular drive all looked exactly the same, which felt wrong because everything else in my life had changed since I last walked through that front door.
I’d been a different person then. No baby, no heartbreak, no three months of rebuilding myself from the ground up in my grandmother’s house. The woman who lived here before was in love and didn’t know she was about to lose everything. Thewoman sitting in this car was pregnant, cautious, and very aware that the walls she’d built were the only things keeping her upright.
Finneas parked and came around to open my door. I rolled my eyes but let him do it because my back had been aching since hour three and getting out of cars at twenty weeks pregnant required more core strength than I currently had.
“I want to show you something,” he said.
“If it’s the library, I’ve seen it.”
“It’s not the library.”
“If it’s your bedroom, absolutely not.”
“It’s not my bedroom, Andrea.”
“Just setting boundaries.”
He almost smiled. I almost let myself enjoy it.
He led me around the side of the estate toward the east wing, which used to be storage rooms and an old conservatory nobody touched. The path was gravel, lined with hedges, and I could hear barking before we rounded the corner, not one dog but several, a chorus of different pitches that made me stop walking.
“Finneas, what...”
“Just come see.”
He opened the door and I walked in and stopped.
I barely recognized it. Professional kennels with clean bedding lined one wall, the floors under my shoes were warm, heated, and through a glass door at the back I could see an outdoor run with grass and shade trees. There was a medical room off to the side with an exam table and equipment I recognized immediately because my mother had the same setup in her clinic in Whitebrook. Stethoscopes, an otoscope, a scale, shelves of medications organized by type.
