My father’s second security officer held the elevator open. Marcus walked beside me, not touching me, staying close enough that if my knees failed, I would not fall.
Inside the elevator, I caught my reflection in the polished metal doors.
My hair was loose and tangled. My face looked colorless. The hospital bracelet still circled my wrist. Noah was wrapped in the blue blanket the nurse had tucked around him before discharge, the one Daniel had not noticed.
The woman staring back at me did not look like the daughter of Charles Bennett.
She looked like someone who had spent too long asking for tenderness from people who considered it optional.
When the elevator opened on the twenty-third floor, I heard voices before I reached our door.
Daniel’s mother, Patricia, laughing.
Ashley speaking over her.
Daniel saying something about wine.
For a second, I froze.
“They came back?” I whispered.
Marcus looked at Henry, who had ridden up with us.
Henry swallowed. “The reservation was apparently canceled. They returned twenty minutes ago.”
Of course they had.
Daniel had left me and Noah on a bus to make a lunch reservation, and then he had not even gone.
The apartment door was unlocked.
Inside, the dining table had been set with plates I had chosen before our wedding. Someone had opened the bottle of champagne my father had sent after Noah’s birth. Patricia sat in my favorite chair with her shoes off, scrolling through her phone. Ashley was photographing the flowers on the counter. Daniel stood near the window, still in his coat, laughing at something his father said.
My diaper bag slipped from Marcus’s hand onto the entry bench.
Every head turned.
Daniel’s smile vanished.
“Emily?” he said.
My name sounded wrong in his mouth.
Patricia stood first. “Why are there men in the hallway?”
I did not answer her. I looked at Daniel.
“You left us on a bus.”
He glanced at Marcus, then at the second security officer, then back at me. His eyes sharpened with embarrassment, not remorse.
“I gave you money,” he said under his breath. “You made it home, didn’t you?”
Ashley rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. Thousands of women take buses with babies.”
I felt Marcus go still beside me.
Noah shifted against my chest and made a tiny sound. That small noise did what Daniel’s words could not. It brought me back into my body.
“My son is five days old,” I said. “I am five days out of surgery. And you drove away in my car.”
Daniel’s father, Richard, frowned. “Your car? Daniel said it was his company vehicle.”
My laugh came out tired and strange.
“No. It was a wedding gift from my father.”
Daniel stepped forward quickly. “Emily, let’s talk in the bedroom.”
“No.”
The word was quiet.
Everyone heard it.