I studied her ring. Large. Elegant. New enough to catch the late-afternoon light.
“Were you really wearing that for him?” I asked.
Elise’s mask cracked.
“I can explain.”
I almost laughed.
“That seems to be going around today.”
My daughter stirred, and every adult in the room went still. When the nurse placed her in my arms, all the noise inside me softened.
She was tiny, warm, and impossibly real.
For months, I had imagined this moment differently: Mark beside me, his hand around mine, maybe tears in his eyes.
Instead, my daughter opened her eyes for half a second, dark and unfocused, and I understood she did not need the story I had imagined.
She needed the mother who had survived the real one.
“What’s her name?” General Hayes asked.
Mark and I had argued over names. He wanted something fashionable. I wanted Grace, after my grandmother.
He dismissed it as old-fashioned.
But Mark was not here.
“Grace,” I said. “Grace Eleanor Whitmore.”
General Hayes smiled faintly.
“A strong name.”
Elise turned toward the window.
I noticed.
So did the general.
