LOGINAva's pov"Samuel has been quite out of sorts about it.""I'm sorry to hear that.""Are you?" She settled opposite me, cup balanced in her fingertips. The smile stayed in place. "That's generous."It was not quite an insult. That was Margaret's gift. She could place a thing in the air so precisely that you only knew it had been thrown when it had already landed.I took a sip of tea so I would not have to answer."How is Lily?"The question was so ordinary it almost made me lose my footing."She's improving. She came home yesterday. The doctors say she's stable. She'll need a long recovery, and a great deal of rest, but we're following their instructions closely.""I'm glad to hear it." She said it evenly. "She's fortunate to have had someone like Damian paying for such expert care.""She is. We both are.""Of course."Her gaze rested on my face a beat too long. I felt, absurdly, like a woman at a checkpoint, with every part of my story being quietly weighed."And how are you finding D
Ava's POVI did not sleep.I lay on my side with my eyes open, listening to the house settle around me, the soft tick of the pipes, the distant hum of the refrigerator two floors down, the faint creak of the stairs that sometimes meant Damian was walking the corridor and sometimes meant nothing at all. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Ethan at the foot of the staircase with one arm still in his coat sleeve.*The look of a man who has stopped asking and started deciding.*I had thought that sentence in the dark last night, and now it would not leave me. I had seen Ethan angry. I had seen him sulk, and sneer, and slam doors, and cry once, at his grandfather's funeral, the only time in five years I had watched him come undone. But I had never seen him go calm. Calm was new. Calm had a plan in it.By the time the window turned from black to grey, I had built and torn down a dozen possibilities. A lawyer's letter. A custody petition.A story fed to some journalist. Victoria, with her c
Ava's Pov"Let me take her out," he said, twenty minutes later.Lily had gone back to the dollhouse with Damian, who was kneeling on the rug beside her and being assigned a series of increasingly demanding household roles. Ethan had stood at the window for a while, and when he turned, he had the air of a man who has arrived at a decision."Out where?""Ice cream. There's that place on Fifth she likes. We'll be back in an hour.""No."The word came out before I thought about it. Flat, steady."Ava…""She can't go out. Not yet. Dr. Reyes was very clear. No public places, no crowds, nothing she might pick up. Her immune system is still too fragile. She can have the garden, and she can have this house, and that's all for at least two weeks.""It's ice cream, not a nightclub.""It's a shop full of strangers. Every cough is a risk.""You're being overcautious.""I'm following the doctor's instructions.""You're using the doctor as an excuse."He said it low, so Lily would not hear. But his
Ava's POVEthan did not come to the hospital that day.I waited for him anyway. I told myself I wasn't. I told myself it was only that I wanted to be ready, so I brushed my hair, and smoothed Lily's blanket, and moved the rabbit from one side of the pillow to the other until Damian, without a word, took it out of my hands and set it back where it had been.*Today,* Ethan had said. *I'm going to come to the hospital today.*By noon, Lily kept looking at the door every time a shadow crossed the glass. By three, she had stopped. By six, she was colouring a dragon with a purple crayon, pressing so hard that the paper began to tear, and she said, in the casual voice children use when they are trying not to ask the thing they most want to know, "Is Daddy still busy?""I think so, baby.""Okay."That was all. She went back to the dragon.The message came at ten minutes to midnight, when she was asleep and I was sitting in the dark with my phone lighting my knees.*Something came up. Will c
Ava's POVThe corridor on Lily's floor was dim at that hour, the overhead lights turned down to a soft amber that was meant to be kind to sleeping children and exhausted mothers. I walked slowly. I had run the whole way from the elevator in my head, but my body would not follow. My hands were still shaking from the car, and I did not know whether it was fear or the delayed weight of everything I had said in that sitting room.Damian walked beside me. He did not speak. He had not spoken since we left his house, and somehow that was easier than if he had.The nurse at the desk looked up and gave me a small, tired smile. "She fell asleep again about ten minutes ago, Mrs. Sterling. She waited as long as she could."*Mrs. Sterling.*I nodded my thanks and pushed the door open as quietly as I could.Lily lay curled on her side with the stuffed rabbit crushed under her chin, one hand still wrapped around its ear. Her mouth was slightly open. The tube taped to the back of her small hand loo
Ethan’s POVThe front door closed with a soft, final click that somehow felt louder than if it had slammed.I stood in the middle of the sitting room with the divorce papers still crushed in my fist. The edges had cut small crescents into my palm. I didn’t notice the sting until I forced my fingers open and let the crumpled sheets fall onto the coffee table. They landed unevenly, one corner folding under itself like it was trying to hide.My mom didn’t wait.“You brought that woman into this house,” she said, voice low and sharp. “You knew Ava would be here. You knew the situation. And you still walked in with her on your arm as if you were introducing a guest at a dinner party.”I turned on her. “Victoria is my girlfriend. I don’t have to hide her.”“There is a difference between having a relationship and deliberately humiliating your wife in front of your parents.”“She’s not my wife anymore.”“She signed papers tonight,” Margaret snapped. “That does not mean you get to parade anoth







