The Stillwater Girls(57)

My heart aches for them more than I ever could have anticipated. I barely know them, but their pain is real, palpable, and infectious.

The only mother they’ve ever known is dead.

Evie is still missing.

Their entire world has been turned upside down.

It’d be impossible to so much as attempt to imagine what’s going through their minds, so I sit between them, slip my arms around their little shoulders, and offer unspoken sympathy.

“Sage, you should lie down,” Wren says, standing. Reaching for her sister’s hand, she leads her upstairs, and I hear her say, “I can hold you the way Mama used to if you want me to.”

As soon as they’re gone, Brant and I lock eyes from across the room, both of us knowing there’s a conversation to finish, one that has been simmering for the past half hour.

“I hate to bring this up now . . .” my husband says, “after what just happened, but I think . . . I think you have it all wrong.”

Folding my arms across my chest, I ask, “What? What do I have wrong?”

“Do you . . . do you think I cheated on you, Nic?” he asks. Brant winces, like this is painful for him, like he’s gearing up to play the victim of an unfortunate misunderstanding.

Bullshit.

“Why else would you be sending money to a woman named Beth and hiding a photo of a girl who looks exactly like you? Do you think I’m an imbecile?”

He must if he’s been pulling the wool over my eyes for nine damn years.

His mouth twitches up at one side but only for a second.

“Nic . . .” He walks toward me, his arms out. A second later, his hands rest on the sides of my arms. “You have it all wrong.”

“Then set me straight.”

“The little girl?” he asks before pausing a moment. “She’s ours.”

I jerk away from him. He’s lying. This isn’t possible. A million things I want to say rush through my mind, mingling together and losing their strength in an undercurrent of my anger. I’ve never felt so disrespected by anyone in my life. For him to think I could possibly believe any of this is the most audaciously manipulative thing my husband has ever done.

My entire body tightens, and while I want to look at Brant, I can’t. The mere thought of it makes my stomach twist into a thousand tiny knots, each one a painful reminder that my life—our life—has been a lie.

“And Beth in New York,” he says, clearly intent on keeping up this charade, “she’s the FBI agent assigned to our case. Has been from the beginning. She knows the whole story.”

“You’re insane if you think I’m going to believe that.” I force myself to meet his pathetic gaze, drawn by the rare flavor of desperation in his voice.

He lifts his palms for a moment before letting them fall at his sides. I should be the speechless one. Not him.

“I had a hysterectomy,” I remind him, lest he forgot. “I can’t get pregnant.”

“You were pregnant. Once,” he says, voice low and gentle. He comes to me, pulling me close despite my arms being crossed tight against my chest. “You didn’t know you were. I didn’t either. It was one of those . . . I don’t know . . . those medically rare things where you were still getting your period and just thought you’d put on a little bit of weight. Plus, with your height, you really didn’t show. Anyway, after the delivery, you started hemorrhaging. The doctors couldn’t stop the bleeding . . . that’s why you had the hysterectomy.”

I drag his musky scent into my lungs, sensing the way he studies me like he’s looking for a light to go on, something to click, a sign that I remember, that I believe him. But I hold my cards close, not wanting to seem gullible, not wanting to cling to something so far-fetched all because of the earnest look in my husband’s watery eyes.

“I came home after running into town one night. You were lying on the bathroom floor in a pool of your own blood, unconscious. Scariest moment of my life, Nic. I called 911.” He stares to the side, chewing the inner corner of his bottom lip as he loses himself in thought for a moment. “When we got you to the hospital, they discovered that you were in labor.”

“How can a mother have no recollection of giving birth?” I’m not just asking Brant—I’m asking myself. Closing my eyes, I try to force myself to remember something, anything. But everything is blank. I have zero recollections of any of this.

“You were traumatized. Fading in and out of consciousness,” he says. “You could have died. She could have died. We blinked, and our whole lives had changed. To say it was all surreal would be an understatement. In a lot of ways, it was like a dream. Still feels that way.”

“Did I hold her?” I ask, not that I fully believe him yet, but I feel compelled to ask in case it helps to jog my memory. “After she was born?”

His green eyes dampen. “Yeah, Nic. You held her.” His expression flattens, and he clears his throat. “That’s when you started hemorrhaging. They couldn’t get it to stop. Next thing I knew, the room filled with more nurses, and they were wheeling you down to the OR for an emergency hysterectomy.”

“I don’t understand why I can’t recall any of this,” I say, though I’m trying. I’m trying like hell, fighting through a mental fog I never knew existed—one I’m still not sure exists. I rest my palm against my lower belly, as if that could possibly help me to remember, as if I might possibly feel something I hadn’t felt before.