Chapter 3: Four Words
The party wound down the way parties do when the emotional temperature has been quietly running too high for too long.
People said their goodbyes in clusters.
Owen's uncle clapped him on the back.
Two of the cousins took photos with the blue confetti still in their hair.
Nobody mentioned what had happened between me and Evelyn.
But people had seen her face change.
I watched them watching her for the rest of the afternoon, trying to work out what they'd missed.
Evelyn stayed until the last guest left.
She helped stack plates she hadn't been asked to stack and refilled a pitcher nobody needed refilled.
She was performing normalcy, and she wasn't quite pulling it off.
Owen was inside washing glasses when Tessa found me on the back steps.
"What did you say to her?" Tessa kept her voice low.
"Four words."
"Katie."
I looked at her.
Tessa had been the only one in that family who ever looked me in the eye when her mother said something cruel.
She'd never stopped it.
But she'd always looked.
"I said, 'I have the letter.'"
Tessa went very still.
Not the way Evelyn had — not with fear.
With recognition.
"What letter?" she said.
But the way she said it told me she already knew there was one.
"The one she sent to the fertility clinic," I said.
"Two years ago.
The one asking them to flag our file and delay our next treatment cycle.
She signed it as Owen's emergency medical contact."
Tessa's hand came up to her mouth.
"She told them he had a heart condition that made pregnancy high-risk for the family.
She said she was acting on his behalf." I kept my voice even.
"We lost eight months, Tessa.
Eight months of trying, because our file kept getting deprioritized and we couldn't understand why."
"How did you find out?"
"The clinic changed administrators.
The new one did an audit of flagged files.
She called me three weeks ago to apologize." I looked out at the yard, at the confetti still caught in the grass.
"She sent me a copy of the letter."
Tessa sat down on the step beside me.
She didn't say anything for a long moment.
"Does Owen know?"
"Not yet."
"Katie—"
"I wanted to wait until after today." I turned to look at her.
"I wanted one good day first.
The blue confetti.
His face when the cannon went off." I paused.
"I got that.
Now I have to tell him."
Tessa pressed her fingers to her forehead.
"She's going to say it was a misunderstanding.
She's going to say she was worried about him."
"I know exactly what she's going to say."
"And what are you going to do?"
I stood up from the step.
"I'm going to let Owen read the letter himself."
Through the kitchen window I could see him at the sink, still smiling, still in the blue-streaked shirt he'd been wearing when the cannon went off.
He hadn't stopped smiling since the reveal.
Inside, Evelyn was folding a dish towel she'd found on the counter.
"Owen," I said.
"Can you come sit down?
There's something I need to show you."
Evelyn's hands stopped moving on the towel.
"Of course." He dried his hands.
"Everything okay?"
"It will be," I said.
I didn't look at Evelyn.
I didn't need to.
I could feel her standing there behind me, perfectly still, the folded towel in both hands, waiting to find out how much I actually had.
I set my phone on the kitchen table, the clinic administrator's email already open, the scanned letter attached.
May you like
Owen leaned down to read it.
The kitchen was very quiet.
