Vanessa closed the door behind her and forced a smile. “Melanie,” she said softly, as if we were close. “How are you feeling?”
I stared at her in disbelief. Less than twenty-four hours earlier, she had called me selfish for going into labor on her birthday.
My mother held up the gift bag. “We brought something for the baby.”
I didn’t respond. Lily was asleep against my chest, wrapped in the hospital blanket, and every instinct in me told me to protect her from the women standing just a few feet away.
“Put that on the chair,” I said flatly.
My mother obeyed too quickly. That was the first thing that unsettled me.
Vanessa stepped closer to the bed. “We need to talk to you.”
“No,” I said. “You need to leave.”
My mother’s mouth tightened. For a moment, I saw the old Patricia—the one who used guilt like a weapon. But then she glanced at Vanessa and seemed to remember why she was there. Her voice softened.
“Melanie, please. Just hear us out.”
Please.
I had never heard that word from her directed at me.
I looked between them. “What do you want?”
Vanessa twisted the strap of her purse. “It’s about Dad.”
That name hit harder than I expected. My father, Robert Hale, had died eight months earlier from a sudden heart attack. At least, that’s what I had been told. We hadn’t been especially close in adulthood, mostly because my mother controlled access to him, but he had been the only person in that family who ever showed me even a little kindness. When he died, Patricia and Vanessa shut me out of everything. Funeral plans. Finances. Paperwork. They told me not to stress because I was pregnant.
