Not just yours.
The room was so quiet I could hear Noah breathing in Daniel’s arms.
Nora whispered, “Lily.”
There was something else inside the envelope.
A second photograph.
This one was newer.
It showed three women standing on the same dock at Briar Lake at different times, the images printed side by side as though someone had arranged them deliberately.
Anna, young and unsmiling, wearing the pearl bracelet.
Vanessa, laughing uncertainly, wearing the pearl bracelet.
And me.
Pregnant, one hand resting on my stomach, standing beside Evan last summer at Claudia’s birthday gathering.
On my wrist, bright in the sun, was the same delicate gold chain.
The same pearl charm.
Under the three photographs, someone had written:
It was never a gift.
It was a marker.
Nora sat down slowly.
Daniel’s face had gone pale.
I stared at the images until they blurred.
All this time, I had thought the bracelet was a symbol of love. Then betrayal. Then humiliation.
But someone was telling me it meant something else entirely.
My phone buzzed once more.
Unknown number.
This time, the message contained only an address in Westhaven.
And a name.
Anna Hayes.
Below it, one final line appeared.
Ask her what happened to the first baby.
