Claire made one call.
Then another.
By the time she lowered the phone, all the color had left her face.
“Nathan… Rachel was discharged this morning.”
My heart stumbled.
“Then where is she?”
“She isn’t home.”
I was already reaching for my coat.
Rachel’s mother answered on the fourth ring.
“Mrs. Bennett, where is Rachel?”
Silence.
Then, “Now you call.”
“I know. I deserve that. Just tell me where she is.”
“You don’t get to arrive with money and fix this.”
“I don’t want to fix it.”
My voice cracked.
“I want to meet my son.”
Another silence.
Finally, she gave me an address.
It wasn’t Rachel’s apartment.
It was a small brick house outside Evanston.
Forty minutes later, I stood on the porch with the photograph folded inside my pocket.
Rachel opened the door.
She looked thinner than I remembered.
Tired.
Beautiful.
And completely unsurprised.
“You canceled Switzerland,” she said.
“How did you know?”
“Claire texted me.”
I almost laughed.
Of course she had.
Then I heard it.
A baby crying somewhere behind her.
Every thought in my head disappeared.
“Owen?”
Rachel’s expression softened, but only slightly.
She stepped aside.
He was lying in a bassinet near the window, wrapped in a blue blanket.
My son.
I moved toward him, then stopped.
“Can I?”
Rachel nodded.
My hands shook as I lifted him.
He was impossibly small.
Warm.
His tiny fingers closed around mine.
And something inside me broke.
“I missed everything,” I whispered.
Rachel looked away.
“No,” she said quietly. “You missed the beginning.”
I looked at her.
“I’ll change.”
“That isn’t why I sent the photograph.”
My stomach tightened.
“Then why?”
Rachel folded her arms.
“Because you needed to know before tomorrow.”
“Before what?”
She walked to the kitchen counter and handed me a thick envelope.
My name was printed across the front.
Inside were legal documents.
Not divorce papers.
Custody papers.
My eyes raced across the page.
Then I saw the name beneath Rachel’s signature.
A second man.
I looked up.
“Who is Daniel Mercer?”
Rachel went pale.
Before she could answer, the front door opened behind me.
A man’s voice said,
“Rachel? Is he here?”
