001 Ashes of the Innocent

(Ava)

For eighteen months I idiotically called this marriage real.

Eighteen months I doted on Zach Lorne, my husband, and believe the million-dollar ring on my finger means everything.

Eighteen months, and then I hear him in his office with Sienna freaking Sinclair and the floor drops out of my happiness.

Eighteen months and all he really wanted was to use me as a baby incubator.

“I should never have married Ava,” he says. Calm. Businesslike. “I just needed someone stupid enough to get pregnant.”

“It isn’t your fault. She was more than willing. Just what we needed. You don’t have to feel guilty for her stupidity, Zach.”

I stand in the hallway with a tray of coffee going cold in my shaking hands and I don’t breathe.

My stomach heaves and I want to vomit.

“I could’ve just gotten a surrogate. If you hadn’t slipped me something, I would’ve been thinking straight that night. I would not have been getting married.”

“Surrogates take time. We didn’t have time. Look, no harm done. We get what we need, you can divorce Ava any old time.”

“You make it sound so easy.”

Sienna hums, low and pleased. “You did what you had to do. Kai needs what he needs. And as his parents, we have to do whatever we need to do to give it to him.”

“What he needs, yes,” Zach repeats, like a contract clause. “And she was convenient. She was pregnant. And that baby’s bone marrow is what’s needed for Kai’s condition.”

I carry the tray back to the kitchen and set it down to stare at my shaking hands. 

I tell myself I misheard.

I tell myself stress twists words. I tell myself Sienna never meant any harm.

She’s my mentor. She’s the woman who held my baby and said, I’m proud of you, you’re going to be an incredible architect and mother.

She’s the one who said, here, take this, it’ll help you sleep. You’re so strung out with classes and night feeds, let me take care of you.

So the next morning, I go to her studio to ask what I heard.

She’s all smooth tone and careful eyes. “You know how men talk. They never want to admit feelings,” she says, touching my arm. “Especially billionaires who are used to controlling everything.”

“You’re lying. You’ve been lying to me all along. What exactly is this autoimmune condition Kai has?” I challenge.

“Go home, Ava. If you don’t believe me, why don’t you ask Zach?”

“I will. And know this, I will never let you touch my Lila.”

But Zach doesn’t come home. No call. No message.

The next day, he showed up with Sienna trailing behind.

He looks hurt and angry. He looks livid.

“Zach, what is it?”

“You lied. Lila is not my daughter. I have a report that proves it.”

Sienna is behind him, watching smugly.

“Zach.” My voice is sand. “Those results are wrong. You know they’re wrong.”

“I know you embarrassed me,” he says, jaw tight. “I know you lied. I know you won’t drag my name any further.”

“I didn’t—”

“Sign.”

“You promised me forever,” I whisper. “You were my first, my only. She’s your daughter.”

He laughs, dead and ugly. “All I needed was a match for Kai. You even tricked me out of that. I’ve wasted eighteen months on you and your kid.” He grabs my wrist and sticks the pen in my hand.

“Sign, so I can be rid of you for good.”

“No, Zach. You loved me. You love me. I know it. Why would you be so hurt and angry otherwise?”

He falters a little. “I was a fool. I will never be that again. Sign!”

I look at the signature line.

My hand shakes again. I steady it with the other.

I sign because what else can I do?

Right now, I need to get out of here with Lila. I need to leave. Zach has no faith in me. In us.

How could he believe this report is true?

I look at Sienna smiling and I hate her. I hate her so much. She’s taken over my life.

I thought she was my friend. 

She was helping me with my architecture degree. She gave me advice.

She’s one of the first female architects in the city. I looked up to her. She was my hero.

Now the man I loved is looking at me like I’m filth.

He turns and walks away without one look back. That should be the bottom.

It isn’t.

Zach leaves and Sienna hangs back.

“Why? Why are you doing this?”

Sienna doesn’t say anything. Just gives a cruel smile and sticks me with the needle.

I try to fight it but her grip is firm.

The last thing I remember is the syringe emptying in my arm.

***

Nurses talk around me like I’m not there.

Six months, they say. She’s been out of it, for six months.

Tried to overdose.

My eyes pop open. I focus. 

Six months… I’ve missed Lila’s second birthday.

I ask for my daughter until my throat tears. “Where is Lila? Where is my baby?”

No one gives me straight answers until a young nurse with tired eyes and apparently a conscience squeezes my hand and says, “She’s at Pediatrics. She’s very sick.”

“How sick?”

She looks at the wall and swallows. “Sepsis. They did everything.”

My body goes to ice. “Take me to her. Right now.”

They warn me I’m weak. They warn me I shouldn’t walk.

I tell them if they don’t take me, I will kill myself right here and right now.

That makes them move. They bring a wheelchair.

***

My baby is tiny in that bed, a tangle of wires and tape and damp curls.

Her skin is too pale. Her chest lifts in shallow, stubborn breaths. 

A doctor’s voice is soft. He says words that mean we’re out of time.

I climb into the bed against every rule they have and I pull her onto my chest. “Hi, my love,” I whisper into her hair. “Mommy’s here. I’m here, I’m here.”

I sing the song I sang at two a.m. feeds.

I tell her I’m sorry. Over and over until the words break.

She warms in my arms and then she doesn’t. Her hand curls around my finger and loosens. The world narrows to the weight of her and the silence that follows.

I do not pass out. I do not scream the ceiling down. I press my mouth to her hair and I memorize it.

I put my palm over her heart and feel her being gone.

I swear, somehow, I will make them pay.

Someone comes to take her and I say no. They try and get me to leave. I say no.

I’m sobbing silent tears.

The nurse with the tired eyes says, “Give her a minute,” and blocks the door with her small body.

Then there was the phone call. Sienna.

She was laughing in my ear. “Be grateful I let you wake up in time to say goodbye,” she says, smug and soft. “Now stop making a scene. It’s pathetic.”

“You wanted this,” I tell her, staring at the wall. “You wanted me out of the way. You wanted him back.”

“I wanted what was best for everyone,” she says. “And once you’re both gone, no more drama. Clean slate.”

The grief turns to something white-hot and steady.

The need to make them pay.