Chapter 4: What He Should Have Said Sooner
"How long has she been doing this?"
Daniel set the baby carefully in the bassinet beside my bed.
He watched her settle.
Then he sat back down and put his hands on his knees.
"The calls to Rebecca started about eight months ago.
That's when I found out."
"Eight months." I stared at him.
"I was pregnant."
"Yes."
"And you didn't tell me."
"I confronted my mother.
She promised she'd stop.
I thought—" He stopped.
"I thought I'd handled it."
"You keep saying that.
*I thought I'd handled it.* Daniel, she wrote on the back of your wedding photo that our baby should have been Rebecca's.
She invited your ex-wife to the delivery room.
What exactly did you think you'd handled?"
He didn't answer right away.
"She lost my father four years ago," he finally said.
"She's been — I don't know how to explain it.
She latched onto the idea that Rebecca was the right person for me.
That I'd made a mistake leaving her.
And when you got pregnant, it got worse."
"Why did you leave Rebecca?"
He looked up.
"That's not—"
"I'm asking."
A pause.
"She wanted children.
We tried for four years.
It didn't happen.
The doctors said it was unlikely to ever happen.
And then—" He stopped again.
"And then she said she wanted to adopt.
I wasn't ready.
We fought about it for a year.
And eventually we both accepted that we wanted different things."
I looked at the bassinet.
"So your mother thinks Rebecca deserved this." I gestured at the room.
At our daughter.
"Because she went through that with you."
"My mother thinks a lot of things that aren't her business."
"Does Rebecca know that's why she sent the photo?
To rub it in?"
"I don't know what my mother knows anymore."
The door opened slightly.
A different nurse leaned in.
"Sorry to interrupt.
There's a woman in the hallway asking if she can come back in.
She says she's the grandmother."
Daniel and I looked at each other.
"No," I said.
The nurse nodded and pulled the door closed.
The quiet came back.
"She's going to keep pushing," I said.
"You know that."
"I know."
"This isn't the end of it.
She'll call.
She'll show up.
She'll find a way to frame this as me keeping her from her grandchild."
"Probably."
"So what are we going to do?"
Daniel leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
"I think we need to set a boundary that's real.
Not a conversation.
Not a promise.
Something she can't talk her way around."
"What does that look like?"
"No contact.
For now.
Until she can acknowledge what she did today and actually mean it."
I watched him.
"You've never done that before," I said.
"With her."
"No."
"She's going to say I made you do it."
"She's going to say a lot of things." He met my eyes.
"But she put Rebecca in this room today.
She wrote those words on that photograph.
She did that on the day our daughter was born." His voice tightened.
"I'm done managing it quietly."
Something in me loosened slightly.
Not all the way.
But slightly.
"What was she asking the nurse to do?" I said.
"You never finished telling me."
Daniel's expression shifted.
"The birth certificate."
I went still.
"She asked the nurse to make sure the name on the birth certificate was filed as Grace before we could change it."
I stared at him.
"She was going to — without asking us—"
"The nurse figured out it wasn't something we'd agreed to.
That's why she came to find me in the hallway.
She wanted to confirm before she did anything."
My hands were flat on the blanket.
"She tried to name our daughter after your ex-wife.
On a legal document.
Without our consent."
"Yes."
I looked at the bassinet.
At the small face, eyes closed, entirely unaware.
"What are we naming her?" I asked quietly.
Daniel looked too.
"Whatever you want," he said.
"You get to choose."
I thought for a moment.
"Nora," I said.
He nodded slowly.
"Nora," he repeated.
Like he was trying it out.
Like he liked it.
Then his phone buzzed on the chair beside him.
He glanced at the screen.
May you like
His face changed.
"It's Rebecca," he said.
