My fingers dug into the mattress as my mind slipped back to the day I first met him—how he stood in the park glowing in the late summer sun, how I’d liked him first, how I’d told Delilah everything, believing she would be happy for me. She’d smiled back then, teased me, played the part of a loyal friend.
I never expected to later see them together—laughing, holding hands. I never confronted either of them. I convinced myself I was being mature. That love was complicated.
Then Delilah left town, and I stayed behind, building a life with the man she abandoned.
Now she was back. And she had his child.
I pressed my hand over my stomach, remembering how he used to lie beside me at night, whispering promises to the unborn baby.
“I’ll never miss a single milestone. First word, first step, first day of school. I’ll teach him to ride a bike—maybe even how to fly. He’ll always know I’m here.”
Every word had been a lie.
I slipped out of the house without saying anything. At the police station, I asked—again—if there was any news about my missing son.
The officer only shook his head. “Nothing new, Mrs. Carrington. At this point…” He didn’t finish the sentence, but I understood it perfectly.
I went back in a daze.
And then I saw it.
A crib in the living room.
Inside it lay a baby boy, fists curled, tiny sounds drifting from his lips. My heart nearly burst out of my chest. He had my son’s hair, my son’s dimple.
I stepped closer, shaking. Just one touch—
“HELP! Somebody help!” Delilah shrieked suddenly. “She’s trying to hurt the baby!”
“I’m not trying to hurt him!” I yelled, my throat raw, hands lifted in surrender while Delilah shrieked like I was some kind of threat.
“She’s lying!” Delilah sobbed, throwing herself over the crib as though I were about to attack. “She reached for him—she’s completely unstable!”
“I only wanted to—”
“Enough!” my mother-in-law snapped, slicing through my words. “I’m done with your performances, Eleanor. You’ve been acting deranged ever since my son passed away.”
Deranged. That was what she called the panic of a mother who saw a child that looked exactly like the baby stolen from her arms.
“I told you I wouldn’t hurt him—”
“Take her downstairs,” Lucinda ordered, her voice glacial as she turned to the staff. “Lock her in the basement.”
The words didn’t register at first. “What did you just say?”