Chapter 7
Before he disconnected the call, I clearly heard a woman’s voice.
She wasn’t a coworker discussing business.
She wasn’t family.
She wasn’t elderly.
Something inside me finally broke.
Keeping my voice as calm as possible, I said,
“Give me the phone.”
“No.”
“Give me the phone, Daniel.”
Instead, he slid it into his pocket.
“You’re acting crazy.”
I laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
Because screaming felt even worse.
“Your son says he watched you take a baby from a crying woman at the hospital, and now you’re making secret phone calls in the middle of the night—and I’m crazy?”
He rounded the desk so quickly that I instinctively stepped backward.
“Keep your voice down.”
“Why? So the fake baby doesn’t wake up?”
Everything changed in that instant.
His face gave him away.
Once you’ve seen genuine guilt, it’s impossible to mistake it for anything else.
He stared at me for several long seconds before slowly sinking back into his chair as though every ounce of strength had disappeared.
When he finally spoke, his voice sounded completely empty.
“You’re not going to like the truth.”
My fingers dug into the doorframe so hard my nails bent.
Daniel rubbed both hands over his face.
“That baby is mine.”
A ringing filled my ears.
“What?”
He looked at me with lifeless eyes.
“She’s my daughter.”
I stared at him.
“Of course she’s your daughter. She’s our daughter.”
He slowly shook his head.
Time seemed to stop.
The silence stretched until it became unbearable.
Finally I heard my own voice asking,
“Whose baby is in my nursery?”
He swallowed.
“Her name is Ava.”
I raised my voice.
May you like
“Whose. Baby.”
He refused to meet my eyes.
