I didn’t move.
I couldn’t.
Some sentences are too enormous to understand the first time you hear them.
“What do you mean
taken out?” I asked.
Tyler looked sick.
“My father said there was a couple waiting for a private adoption.”
Vanessa’s face had gone white.
“You gave away my baby?”
“No.”
“You just said—”
“I stopped it.”
“How?”
“I found out what he had done after the paperwork had already started. I told him I wouldn’t go along with it.”
Vanessa’s breathing quickened.
“So what happened to my child?”
Tyler looked directly at me.
My stomach dropped.
“No,” I whispered.
“Claire—”
“No.”
“You need to understand the timing.”
“No.”
“You and I met later.”
“No.”
“You were already pregnant when—”
I stood.
The room seemed to tilt.
I remembered the day I met Tyler.
A friend’s birthday dinner.
A crowded restaurant.
I had been six months pregnant and newly separated from Mason’s biological father.
Or the man I believed was Mason’s biological father.
His name was Daniel.
He had left halfway
through my pregnancy.
At least that was the story I had lived with.
Daniel had signed paperwork relinquishing parental rights months later.
Tyler had adopted Mason shortly after our wedding.
That was our history.
That was the truth.
Wasn’t it?
I gripped the table.
“What are you saying?”
Tyler’s voice became almost inaudible.
“Your pregnancy records were altered.”
The room went silent again.
I stared at him.
Then I laughed.
I couldn’t help it.
It was one small, breathless sound.
Because sometimes reality becomes so impossible that your body chooses the wrong reaction.
“I was pregnant.”
“I know.”
“I felt him move.”
“I know.”
“I gave birth to him.”
“I know.”
“So don’t sit there and tell me hospital records were altered like that explains anything.”
“It doesn’t.”
“What happened to the baby I delivered?”
Tyler looked at the floor.
Vanessa slowly sat again.
For the first time, fear entered
her face.
Not anger.
Fear.
“Tyler,” she whispered. “What happened?”
He took a long breath.
