Then I moved a fraction closer to the window and saw her.
She stood in the middle of the room wearing leggings and a fitted tank top, her stomach completely flat, holding a flesh-toned silicone pregnancy belly in both hands. For a moment, my mind refused to process what I was seeing. It felt wrong, like watching someone change costumes after a funeral.
Ethan sat on the couch with his head in his hands.
Vanessa tossed the fake belly beside him and said, “Relax. Your mother already signed the trust papers, didn’t she?”
My heart stopped.
Ethan looked up. “You don’t know that yet.”
She rolled her eyes. “Please. You said Caleb was meeting her this morning. She’s sentimental, lonely, and obsessed with being a grandmother. Of course she signed.”
I couldn’t breathe.
The gift bags slipped in my hands.
Then Ethan said the sentence that destroyed whatever remained inside me:
“The second that cottage is locked in for our ‘baby,’ we tell her there was a complication and the pregnancy didn’t make it. After that, she’ll be too guilty to question anything.”
The silver rattle slipped from my hand and hit the stone path.
Inside the house, both of them turned toward the window.
For one long second, no one moved.
The rattle rolled once across the stone and tapped against a flowerpot. Inside, Vanessa’s face went pale. Ethan froze, like a child caught not just doing something wrong, but something so cruel he didn’t know how to cover it.
I should have walked away.
I should have gone back to the car, called my attorney, and handled everything coldly.
Instead, I did what mothers do when pain hits harder than dignity can hold.
I pushed open the front gate, marched to the door, and rang the bell with the folder still in my hand.
