At dusk, Ethan sent a photograph of the nursery we’d painted together. The crib stood against pale green walls. On the changing table lay the yellow sleeper, neatly folded.
He wrote: Come back, Claire. Iris needs both of us.
Below it came a second message.
*Mom says the court can decide whether you’re safe enough to take her home.*
I saw Ethan through the glass outside the NICU. He stood with a bunch of pink flowers and looked smaller than I’d ever seen him.
The staff had arranged a separate conversation with him about Iris’s care. I was leaving when he spotted me.
“Claire. Please.”
“Don’t block the doorway.”
He stepped aside. That tiny act of obedience made me angrier than a fight would have.
“I saw her,” he said. “She’s beautiful.”
“She had surgery because your mother pushed me.”
“You don’t know what Mom meant to do.”
“I know you were standing there.”
His face went pale. The flowers lowered in his hand.
“What are you talking about?”
“Nina’s camera. I saw you.”
He glanced at the nurses’ station, then leaned toward me. “That’s not how it happened.”
“Then tell me how it happened. All of it.”
“Not here.”
“Of course not.”
I walked away before he could see me shaking. I had once trusted that same voice to calm me during a storm. Now it could make a lie sound almost tender.
Back in my room, Felix sent photographs of checks and transfer records. He had found an invoice signed by Ethan for a site called Morrow Point, a luxury development on the waterfront. The invoice was marked paid using money from Little Harbor.
Morrow Point had been failing for months. Ethan had told me the investors were happy.
Then Felix sent a final image: a handwritten instruction on Whitcomb stationery, dated three days before the fall.
*If Claire refuses medical leave, activate Plan B before the next trustee meeting.*
The initials at the bottom were E.W.
