Chapter 4

I dried my eyes and started the car.

When I got home, I started packing, calmly.

That was when the call came from the hospital.

I thought it was about the surgical report.

But what the voice on the other end said hit me like a defibrillator paddle.

"Dr. Jo, your annual physical came back. You're six weeks pregnant. Congratulations."

My hand drifted down to my flat stomach.

Six weeks.

While I was in that white dress walking toward him, this baby had already been there.

The tears came before I could stop them.

Not from joy, but from how grotesque the timing was.

At the hospital, I sat on a bench in the hallway for a long time with the ultrasound printout in my lap.

Eventually, I picked up the phone.

[Did we ever have a child?]

The 'typing' indicator stayed up for what felt like forever.

Finally: [We did.]

Then a second message.

[Don't ask, Jo. Please.]

An hour of silence passed.

Then he sent a voice note. His voice was so hoarse it sounded shredded.

"Jo, this baby. If you end it now, it's better. For him. For you."

"Don't let anyone know he existed."

"Including the version of me you're sleeping next to."

I pushed him for the rest of the day. Eventually, in pieces, he gave it to me.

[You were three months along. I was helping Vivian with her visa paperwork, and you went to your prenatal appointment alone.]

[Vivian ran into you at the hospital and panicked. She thought a baby gave you leverage.]

[So she swapped your prenatal vitamins for warfarin.]

[The day you hemorrhaged and they rushed you to the ER, I was at the airport saying goodbye to her.]

[By the time you woke up, he was gone.]

[It was a boy.]

[You'd already picked out a name. Evan.]

I clamped a hand over my mouth so I wouldn't make a sound.

My son. I hadn't even felt him move, and they'd killed him.

Evan.

What a name to choose.

At two in the morning, I drove myself to a private OB-GYN clinic.

"I need to terminate the pregnancy." My voice was eerily steady.

The doctor looked at the chart and frowned. "Ma'am, you're only six weeks. The pregnancy looks healthy. Have you really thought about this?"

I closed my eyes. There was nothing left in my voice. "I'm sure."

After the procedure, I folded the ultrasound twice and tucked it into the inside pocket of my coat.

That afternoon, I watched Josh board a Greyhound heading south.

He was still complaining that the seventy-five thousand grand wasn't enough.

"Come on, sis, this is barely anything. Ethan's loaded, why didn't you squeeze a little more out of him?"

"There's no more. This is the last time." I worked hard to keep my voice level.

When he disappeared into the crowd, I crouched behind a pillar at the station and finally let myself sob.

That night, I went back to the apartment Ethan and I had built for our marriage, one last time.

He was on the couch going through case files. He looked up and smiled.

"You're home."

I sat across from him and looked at the face I'd loved for eight years.

He was still that handsome, and he still looked like he loved me.

"Ethan. If I weren't here one day, what would you do?"

He put the files down, came over, and pulled me into his arms.

" Don't say things like that. You're not going anywhere. Even if you ran to the other side of the world, I'd come and find you."

He kissed the top of my head, his voice firm.

"Jo. Don't ever leave me."

He held me tight, my face against his chest.

He had no idea that this was the last time I'd let myself be held by him.

And I had no intention of letting him find me again.

The next morning, I went back to the small apartment I'd lived in before we got engaged.

Eight years ago, this was where he'd told me he loved me for the first time.

I took the wedding ring off and set it on the windowsill.

Next to it I put my phone. The screen showed my final message to future Ethan.

[Thank you for telling me everything.]

I turned the kitchen gas on full.

Then I lit the scented candle he'd given me, the one on the table.

I walked out of that building and didn't look back.

That evening, Ethan got a call from the fire department.

"Sir, are you Jo's next of kin? There's been an explosion at her apartment—"

"What did you say? What happened to her?"

He tore out of the office and drove to the scene like a man possessed.

He had noticed something off about her the last few days. Of course he had.

The way she'd suddenly handed Josh that money and told him to leave. The strange questions she'd asked the night before.

Even the way she looked at him had changed; there was a sadness in it he couldn't read.

He'd written it off as wedding stress, certain it would pass.

When she'd said "What would you do if I weren't here?" he'd thought she was being sweet.

He hadn't heard her say goodbye.

By the time he got there, the building was wrapped in yellow tape.

Her apartment was a charred frame.

A firefighter handed him a soot-blackened but recognizable ring, along with a phone destroyed by heat.

"We found a body. Identification will require DNA confirmation."

He squeezed the ring, and his legs gave out under him.

That was when the destroyed phone, somehow, lit up.

An incoming video call.

His hands were shaking. He answered it without thinking.

On the screen was his own face.

Older. Hollow-eyed. Drowning in regret.

He couldn't process it.

What was happening? Why was Jo here? What had pushed her this far?