Chapter 4: The Woman Who Came Before
Adrian took them to a small room off the main corridor — a coat room, lined with jackets and wraps that belonged to guests who were now standing in the ballroom wondering what to do with their champagne.
He sat Clara down on a padded bench.
He found a bottle of water on a side table and opened it and handed it to her without asking.
She drank half of it in one go.
Mia had fallen asleep against Clara's shoulder, exhausted in the sudden way of very small children, as if the world had simply become too loud and she had opted out of it.
Adrian pulled a chair close and sat facing them.
"Tell me everything," he said.
"From the beginning.
Take your time."
Clara looked at him for a moment, measuring something.
"Mama got sick when Mia was three months old," she said.
"She didn't want to tell anyone at first.
She kept saying she just needed rest.
But she kept getting worse."
"What kind of sick?"
"Her heart." Clara's voice was flat in the way children's voices go flat when they have already cried about something so many times that the words have dried out.
"The doctors said it was something she was born with.
That it had always been there.
That the pregnancy made it worse."
Adrian was very still.
"She was in the hospital for a long time," Clara continued.
"I stayed with our neighbor, Mrs.
Okafor.
She watched Mia too.
Mama wrote the letter from the hospital.
She gave it to me with the necklace and the photo and she said — she said if she didn't come home, I had to find you."
"And she didn't come home," Adrian said.
Clara shook her head.
The silence between them was the kind that doesn't need to be filled.
"When did she pass?" Adrian asked.
"Six weeks ago."
Six weeks.
Adrian looked down at his hands.
Six weeks ago he had been finalizing seating arrangements for a wedding.
Choosing between two shades of white for the table linens.
Arguing pleasantly with Victoria about whether the band should play during dinner or only after.
Six weeks ago, Elena had d*ed alone, and Clara had been caring for a fourteen-month-old baby in a neighbor's apartment, waiting to feel brave enough to walk into a ballroom full of strangers and say the word daddy to a man she had never met.
"How did you get here?" he asked.
"Today.
How did you know where to find me?"
"Mama had an old address for you.
And Mrs.
Okafor helped me look online.
We found the wedding announcement.
It had the venue." Clara paused.
"I didn't know what else to do.
I didn't have anyone else."
Adrian nodded slowly.
"You did the right thing," he said.
"Coming here.
I need you to know that."
Clara studied him.
"Victoria said you didn't want us."
"Victoria lied."
"She called Mama, didn't she?
Back then.
She pretended to be — she pretended to be speaking for you."
"Yes," Adrian said.
"I believe she did."
"Mama cried for a long time after that call," Clara said.
"She didn't tell me what it was about.
But she cried for a long time.
And then she stopped talking about you."
Adrian stood up abruptly and walked to the window.
Outside, the venue's garden was perfectly arranged — white flowers, small lanterns not yet lit, chairs set in rows for a ceremony that had already ended a different way than anyone planned.
"I'm going to need to make some calls," he said, more to himself than to Clara.
"Are you going to send us away?" Clara asked.
He turned around.
"No," he said.
"I am not going to send you away."
Clara looked at him for another long moment.
Then she looked down at Mia sleeping against her shoulder.
"She has your nose," Clara said quietly.
"Mama used to say that."
Adrian crossed back to them.
He sat down again.
He looked at Mia's small face — the curve of her cheek, the dark lashes, the small fist curled near her chin.
"She does," he said softly.
Neither of them spoke for a moment.
Then Adrian's phone buzzed.
He glanced at the screen.
It was a message from Victoria.
*We need to talk.
Alone.
Before you do anything you can't undo.
I have something you need to hear.
Something about Elena you don't know.*
Adrian read it twice.
Then he set the phone face-down on the bench beside him.
May you like
Whatever Victoria wanted him to hear — she had chosen the wrong moment to use it as a bargaining chip.
But the message meant one thing clearly: she wasn't finished.
