I called my mother right after giving birth to my daughter, but she laughed and said she was too busy with my sister’s birthday party to care. My sister screamed that I’d ruined her special day, and I hung up crying with my baby in my arms. But the next day, they were there, right in front of me… begging me.

“She showed up around nine,” she said. “She said you were okay. She said the delivery was taking forever and that you told her to leave.”

I narrowed my eyes.

“That’s a lie.”

“I know,” Vanessa said. “Because then he went outside to take a call. I followed him because…” She hesitated. “Because I thought he was going to meet someone.”

I gripped Lily’s blanket tightly.

“And was it him?” I asked.

Vanessa looked me in the eyes.

“Yes,” she said. “My cousin Rachel.”

Rachel. My mother’s niece. Thirty-two years old, refined, charming, always too interested in other women’s husbands.

The same Rachel who organized my baby shower.

The same Rachel who called Daniel “a saint” for putting up with my stress.

The room tilted.

“They were in the parking lot,” Vanessa said quietly. “They weren’t talking. They were kissing.”

My daughter burst into tears just as my entire life fell apart for the second time in two years.

Days.

For a moment, I could hear nothing but Lily’s cries.

That sound broke the ringing in my ears and brought me back to reality. I moved her gently, ignoring the pain, and cradled her until her cries softened into short, ragged breaths. My mother spoke again, but I raised a hand without looking at her.

“No,” I said.

The word came out calmly, which made it all the more cutting.

Vanessa seemed distraught, but Patricia had already begun to recalculate, as she always did when things didn’t go her way. She had come expecting desperation. A weary daughter. An easy target. Someone she could pressure into signing papers without question. Instead, she had given me the final piece I didn’t know I was missing.

My husband had abandoned me during childbirth to be with another woman.

And the women who had poisoned half my life needed me to save theirs.

I slowly raised my head. “Get the lawyer’s number.”

Patricia blinked. “What?”

“The estate lawyer,” I said. “Write down his number.”

Her shoulders relaxed with obvious relief. She thought she was giving in.

“I knew you’d come to your senses,” she said, as she searched for a pen in her bag.

—I didn’t say I was going to sign anything.

His hand stopped.

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