Chapter 3

I stood up.

"You all keep eating."

My father slammed his palm on the table.

"If you walk out that door today, don't bother coming back!"

I looked back at him.

"Fine."

My mother froze.

"Dawn, don't say things you don't mean."

"I mean it."

I walked out of the Whitmore house.

Not one person came after me.

By the time I got downstairs, my phone buzzed.

It was a message from my mother.

Mom: [Your sister cried so hard her stomach hurts. Come back and apologize to her.]

I stared at the message for a long time, then laughed.

After that, I changed her contact name from Mom to Mrs. Whitmore.

I looked back at the brightly lit house.

All I wanted was to go somewhere no one would tell me to apologize.

I was still looking for the red braided bracelet when Margaret called from the Hale family estate.

I'd braided it myself for my baby while I was pregnant.

It was a thin red braided bracelet with one crooked little knot.

The baby moved for the first time while I was making it, and my hand trembled.

When I woke up after the miscarriage, the bracelet was gone.

Graham told me a nurse had probably misplaced it while tidying up.

I believed him.

Margaret said over the phone, "Grandpa Hale wants to see you. Come over for dinner tonight."

At first, I wanted to say no.

But Arthur Hale was the only person in the Hale family who had ever truly cared about me.

After I lost the baby, he'd sent me a small silver pendant.

So I went.

Celeste was already in the living room when I arrived at the Hale estate.

She sat beside Arthur, peeling an apple for him.

She was wearing a red braided bracelet.

I stopped in the doorway. My blood ran cold.

I could never mistake that crooked little knot.

Celeste followed my gaze. Then, as if she'd only just remembered what she was wearing, she lifted her wrist.

"Dawn, what do you think? Isn't it pretty?"

She gave me a timid smile.

"Graham gave it to me. He said it was a good-luck bracelet, supposed to keep me safe."

Graham came out carrying tea and stopped short.

I walked toward her, one slow step at a time.

"Take it off."

Celeste blinked.

"What?"

"I said, take it off."

Her eyes immediately filled with tears.

"Dawn, I didn't know it was yours."

"I made that for my baby."

Arthur's expression changed.

Margaret stared at me in shock.

Graham frowned slightly.

"I didn't know."

"You didn't know?"

I stared at him.

"It was beside my pillow when I came out of surgery. You took it yourself."

His face stiffened as the memory came back to him.

"I thought seeing it would only upset you."

"So you gave it to her?"

Celeste started tugging at the bracelet through her tears.

"I'll give it back, Dawn. I really didn't know."

She pulled harder and harder until the bracelet dug into her wrist, leaving red marks.

Graham caught her hand.

"Don't. You'll hurt yourself."

I stared at the way he was protecting her hand.

That hurt even more than seeing my baby's bracelet around her wrist.

"Tell her to give it back to me."

Graham looked up at me, his voice low.

"Dawn Whitmore, it's just a bracelet."

I laughed.

"Just a bracelet."

I pointed to my stomach.

"Just a baby."

His expression finally changed.

Arthur started coughing, furious.

"Graham, what the hell is wrong with you?"

Celeste cried even harder.

"Dawn, don't blame Graham. I haven't been sleeping well lately. That's why he gave it to me."

Her voice was quiet, as if she didn't want anyone else to hear. Or maybe she wanted only me to hear.

"He said keeping it with you would only make you sad, so he thought it might keep bad luck away from me instead."

Keep bad luck away.

My baby was gone.

And the bracelet I'd made for my baby was now supposed to protect Celeste instead.

I reached for it.

Graham grabbed my wrist.

"Enough."

I looked at him.

"You're stopping me?"

He said, "Celeste just got divorced. She's not in a good place emotionally."

I laughed.

"So when she cries, you're all terrified that pushing her too hard will break her.

"I lost my baby. My marriage was traded for money. Every one of you lied to me and treated me like a fool."

I looked straight at Graham.

"And all any of you ever do is tell me to be understanding."

I forced out each word.

"Graham Hale, what exactly do I owe any of you?"

He didn't answer.

Celeste suddenly gave the bracelet a hard tug.

It snapped.

A loose red strand fell to the floor without a sound.

I crouched down to pick it up.

The moment my fingertips touched it, the tears finally came.

Not for Graham.

For my baby.

For my baby, who never even got to keep the little bracelet I'd made.

I closed my fist around the broken bracelet and turned toward the door.

Graham followed me out into the yard.

"I'll drive you."

"No."

"You shouldn't be alone like this. It's not safe."

I turned back to him.

"Graham, was there ever a moment when you truly wanted that baby to be born?"

He went silent.

I nodded.

"I see."

That night, I didn't go back to our bedroom.

I sat in the guest room and placed the baby's little socks, the small keepsake charm, and the broken bracelet into a box.

On the lid, I wrote, "Mommy couldn't protect you."

When I finished, I wiped away my tears and started packing.

I had painfully little to take.

A few old clothes.

A handful of books.

One photograph my grandmother had left me.

I didn't take a single piece of jewelry Graham had bought me.

Before I left, I slipped off my wedding ring and placed it on the nightstand.

It landed with the faintest sound.

Like the sound of the love I'd given him for the past three years.

So quiet, he'd never heard it.