Chapter 5: Phoebe
She answered on the second ring.
"Mum?
How is she?
How are you?"
"Phoebe, I need you to listen to me very carefully and I need you not to panic."
A pause.
"Okay."
"I need you to come to the hospital right now.
Bring your work bag.
Bring anything you have that looks official.
Don't tell anyone where you're going."
Another pause, shorter this time.
"I'm already getting my keys."
I exhaled.
"Fourth floor.
Room 214.
Come straight here, don't stop at my room first."
"Mum." Her voice was steady.
"Is the baby safe?"
"She's in my arms."
"Then I'm twelve minutes away."
She hung up.
Ruth was on her own phone in the corner, speaking quietly.
I caught fragments — *maternity ward, potential coercion, transfer documents not yet signed* — and then she turned slightly away and I stopped trying to hear.
The footsteps in the corridor had passed.
I sat in the chair by the window and held the baby and tried to think clearly.
Claire had said *we were promised something else.* Evan had said *there are people involved in this arrangement.* And somewhere, a company registered in the Channel Islands had prepared to pay them a sum that made my hands shake.
For a boy.
A specific, ordered, purchased boy.
And when the baby turned out to be a girl, the transaction fell apart — and so did everything I thought I knew about my sister.
The door opened.
It was Claire.
She looked at Ruth.
She looked at the folder in my lap.
Her face went through several expressions very quickly, and none of them were the ones I wanted to see.
"Marianne," she said.
"Come back to your room."
"I'm fine here."
"You're not well enough to be walking around.
You just gave birth."
"I feel clear-headed, actually."
Claire's eyes moved to the folder again.
"Where did you get that?"
"Does it matter?"
"That's private financial information and it has nothing to do with—"
"Alderton Group Consulting," I said.
"Channel Islands.
Evan's name on a wire transfer." I looked at my sister.
"How long has this been planned, Claire?"
Her mouth opened.
Closed.
"How long?" I said again.
"You don't understand the full picture."
"Then help me understand it.
Right now.
In this room."
Claire stepped inside and pulled the door almost shut behind her.
Her voice dropped.
"Evan's business has been in trouble for two years.
You know that.
You knew that."
"I knew there were difficulties.
I didn't know you were solving them by selling a baby."
"It wasn't like that."
"Then what was it like?"
"It was a private adoption.
A legal arrangement.
Wealthy families do this all the time, Marianne.
The Alderton Group connects families who want children with—"
"With women who carry them and then hand them over for money."
"With surrogates who are fairly compensated—"
"I wasn't compensated, Claire.
I wasn't a surrogate.
I was your sister who said yes because I loved you."
The word *loved* landed in the past tense and neither of us moved for a moment.
Claire's eyes filled.
"I do love you."
"Then tell me the truth.
All of it.
Right now."
She looked at the baby.
Something crossed her face — not the cold refusal from the hospital room.
Something older.
Something that looked, for just a moment, like grief.
"The family who was going to take him — the boy — they're connected," she said quietly.
"They're not people you say no to easily."
My stomach dropped.
"What does that mean?"
Before Claire could answer, the door opened behind her.
Phoebe walked in, work bag over her shoulder, slightly out of breath, eyes taking in the room in one sweep.
She looked at me.
She looked at the baby.
She looked at Claire.
May you like
"Aunt Claire," she said, in a voice that gave nothing away.
"I think you should sit down."
