Chapter 4

Sabrina Ellison. And in the line for the adopted child, filled in just as neatly: Owen Granger.

Blood shot straight to the top of my skull and my hands and feet went cold.

Then I remembered.

A few weeks earlier I'd been registering for a licensing exam that required in-person identity verification. I'd had a conflict that day, and Caleb volunteered to go handle it for me and took my ID.

I hadn't thought twice about it. I'd actually been touched that he was so thoughtful.

He'd planned the whole thing. He used my trust and filed adoption paperwork behind my back, and I never knew.

"Owen Granger..." Looking at that name brought thirty years of swallowed humiliation up my throat so fast I could barely stay on my feet.

That name was a cage.

A cage built to lock me back in with the boy who'd watched me die and the two people who'd made him.

Caleb saw how white I'd gone and actually took my hand to comfort me.

I threw it off. He didn't even get angry.

Caleb's face smoothed out. "Sabrina, I know it's a lot at once. I don't want to force you. But I couldn't stand by and watch you turn into someone cold, either. He has nobody. So I made the call for both of us. We're claiming him.

"The certificate's already issued. Legally, you're his mother now. And if you really want to fight me on it...

"then I'll just tell everyone he's ours. We're getting married anyway. Nobody's going to find it strange.

"I'm not going to watch a baby get warehoused as an orphan because the adults in the room were selfish."

He delivered it like a sermon.

I looked at that unbelievably sanctimonious face, and at Lydia beside him holding the baby with satisfaction leaking out around the edges of her grief.

Maybe I'd gone so far past anger that I came out the other side, because what I felt was a strange, spreading calm.

My mouth curved before I could stop it. I smiled.

"You're right, Caleb. With this, the baby's finally settled."

Caleb visibly let go of a breath. He looked relieved. Pleased with himself.

Lydia relaxed too, and dipped her head to brush her cheek against the baby's.

Then I changed direction. "There's just one thing. I leave the country next month. The paperwork's done, the tuition's paid. If I don't go, that place is wasted."

Caleb jumped on it. "That's nothing. Why would it go to waste?"

He looked at Lydia. "Let Lyd take it. You both trained in clinical medicine, it's the same field, and she's our closest friend.

"Sabrina, look how well it works out. Lyd goes in your place, so it's still one of ours living your dream. Better her than a stranger. You stay here and take care of the baby and our home. Everybody wins."

Lydia's eyes shone with tears. "Sabrina, trust me. I'll work so hard. I won't let you and Caleb down."

I watched the two of them trade lines like they'd rehearsed it.

And a picture came back to me from my first life: two sagging, shameless bodies tangled together, in my house, the week of my funeral.

I laughed out loud, softly, and they both froze and stared at me, baffled.

"All right, Caleb. Don't come back to me later and say you regret it.

"From this moment on, I'm this child's legal guardian."

I watched the tension drain out of both their faces, and something cold spread through my chest.

And under the cold, something that was almost excitement.

That was when the door banged open.

A young nurse came in fast with a printout, her face urgent. "The results are back on the baby. He needs to go up to the ICU now.

"This is the abandoned infant, correct? No family to sign, so we'll transfer him directly-"

She was already reaching to move him onto the gurney.

I put my hand out and stopped her. "Who told you he has no family?"