Prologue, Part 3: The Daughter They Ordered

It had been four months since the fire, and Angelica had learned to stop being so spiteful about waiting rooms.

The one she was currently in was her ticket to a brand-new life. She was in a private suite with a window overlooking the gardens outside. She tried to sit up straight and look like she deserved the opportunity she had just been given. Sucking in a breath, she adjusted her spine and clamped her hands together in her lap.

The stranger was here, too, and he was hovering by the door. He kept on checking his watch, telling Angelica that urgent matters were at hand.

“They’re here, I take it,” she said to the stranger.

“I can tell. You’ve checked your watch three times.”

“You should be preparing your mind to meet them instead of analyzing my watch habits.”

To say she wasn’t nervous would have been a lie. She could feel the sweat gathering at the top of her brow, and she reached up to wipe it off.

Today was the day she was going to meet her new parents, Kate and Jude Voss.

Kate and Jude Voss walked in together, and they looked like nothing she had imagined in her constant thoughts about them. Kate wore a cream cardigan and pearls that looked older than Angelica. Jude was tall and silver-haired, and he held a folded newspaper in his hand. In all her musings, she had never thought they’d look as young as they did. She had expected an old couple. Kate and Jude did not look a day over 50.

“Seraphina,” Kate said softly.

Angelica knew that she was expected to have become Seraphina. However, the constant whispering of the new name to herself did not stop the flinch from coming out. She could not flinch anytime she was called. She hoped Kate and Jude did not notice.

She cleared her throat.

“Mrs. Voss. Mr. Voss. Thank you for coming. I think it would help if we were clear about what this is.”

Kate’s smile faltered. “Well, of course, darling.”

She tried to offer them a small smile, but it didn’t come. “You’ve been told about my condition.”

“We have,” Jude said.

“From what I understand, you provide the name, the care, and the access. I will be the daughter you need in public. What I do in private, and why, is not up for discussion.” She had rehearsed that part. “I would rather we didn’t pretend this is something else.”

Kate looked at her husband. He gave the smallest nod.

“We won’t ask you to pretend,” Kate said at last. “But we did hope that, in time, you might not need to.”

Angelica said nothing. Hope was not a feeling she wanted to cling to anymore.

They stayed twenty more minutes that seemed to be longer than they were. Kate repeatedly asked whether she needed anything, and Angelica said no each time. Kate, she found, was unnecessarily fussy. She didn’t want to be fussed over.

At the door, Kate hesitated.

“We eat at six on Sundays,” she said. “There will always be a chair for you.”

“I won’t be needing it.”

“That’s all right,” Kate said. “It will be there.”

Kate came back the next Thursday, and the Thursday after that.

She brought flowers, which Angelica had the nurses move to the corridor. She brought a cashmere blanket “in case the hospital is cold,” which Angelica accepted with a deadpan thank you. Jude came with her every time and sat by the window with the newspaper, and he rarely ever spoke a word.

Angelica did not mind. She had decided long ago what they were. They were a door, and a door was not something you got attached to. You used it for what it was: its access.

In the sixth week since they started visiting her constantly, Kate arrived carrying a box.

Inside was a pie. The crust had cracked straight down the middle, and the filling had leaked out one side in a sticky brown tide.

“I made it myself,” Kate said. “It’s dreadful. I’m a terrible baker, but I like to try anyway.”

“Then why bring it?”

Kate flashed her a smile. “Because everything else I’ve brought you was bought. I wanted you to have one thing that wasn’t, even if the hand that made it wasn’t any good.”

Seraphina eyed the box. It seemed Kate had bothered to make her something homemade. She could not remember the last time she had enjoyed a home-cooked meal.

“You can leave it on the table.”

“No problem, honey.”

She didn’t touch it while they were there. But in the dark, her curiosity won, and she took a bite. It was awful. The crust was tough, and the filling was too sweet. She could also taste a hint of salt, which she wasn’t sure belonged in a pie.

She ate a second slice anyway.

Months into her treatment, they did the surgery that rebuilt the left side of her jaw. She woke up groggy and sore, and her head felt like there were cotton balls in it. She looked around her and noticed someone asleep on the chair beside her bed. Kate was asleep with her cardigan balled up under her head, and Jude was slumped beside her with his newspaper draped over his face.

Angelica felt her heart falter. They could have just paid for the surgery. They didn’t have to stay with her.

This is an investment, she told herself. It’s nothing to be sentimental or mushy over.

The stranger was waiting in the corridor when she was finally discharged to her private ward. He glanced past her at the sleeping couple and then back at her face.

“They’ve grown fond of you.”

Angelica scoffed. “They don’t know me.”

“That has never stopped anyone.” His voice stayed low. “You need to loosen up, Angelica. Don’t push the good things you have going for you away.”

Angelica turned her face away from him until he left, and when he finally did, she let a lone tear fall onto her cheek.