Chapter 2 - The Weight of a Name
The cry of the infant was like a siren,
pulling me toward the door of the room,
even as my heart screamed at me to run the other way.
I pushed the heavy door open,
the scent of antiseptic and new-born skin hitting me with the force of a memory.
James followed me,
silent as a shadow,
his presence a heavy pressure against my back.
I walked to the bassinet,
my hands hovering over the edge,
afraid to touch the life that had been born from such deception.
She was beautiful.
There was no denying that.
She had the same high cheekbones as James,
the same long,
delicate fingers that I saw in our oldest son,
Leo.
She was a piece of him,
a piece of his history that he had hidden away in the dark.
"What was she going to call her?"
I asked,
my voice hollow.
James stood on the other side of the crib,
the light catching the tears on his cheeks.
"She didn't have a name,"
he said,
"she told me that she wanted us to choose."
I felt a surge of nausea.
How could he say that so casually?
How could he act as if this was a gift,
rather than a betrayal of the highest order?
"I had a name,"
I said,
my voice cold,
"I had a name picked out since I was nineteen years old."
"Maya,"
James whispered,
knowing exactly what I was thinking.
"Don't you dare,"
I snapped,
looking up at him with fire in my eyes,
"don't you dare use that name for this."
"Maya was for our daughter,"
I continued,
"the one my body couldn't carry,
the one we dreamed of together."
"This baby is the result of your lies,
James."
He winced,
as if I had slapped him,
but he didn't look away.
"She is a baby,
Sarah,"
he said softly,
"she is innocent of everything I did wrong."
I looked back down at her.
She had stopped crying and was now staring up with wide,
unfocused eyes.
They were blue,
just like Elena’s used to be in the old photographs.
The sister who wasn't dead.
The sister who had lived a whole life while we mourned her.
"Where has she been?"
I asked,
my curiosity finally overtaking my rage for a brief moment.
"Where was Elena for ten years?"
James sighed,
leaning his elbows on the rail of the bassinet.
"She was in trouble,
Sarah,"
he began,
"drugs,
bad people,
the kind of life she didn't want us to see."
"She faked her death?"
I asked,
the absurdity of it all making me want to laugh hysterically.
"She let me believe she was dead so she could disappear?"
"No,"
James said,
"she didn't fake it."
"Our parents told everyone she was dead because they were ashamed of her."
I felt my jaw drop.
His parents,
the kind,
church-going people who visited us every Christmas,
had lied about their own daughter’s death?
"They told me she died in a crash in Oregon,"
James said,
his voice trembling,
"and I believed them for five years."
"Then I found out she was alive,
working in a diner in Nevada."
"I’ve been sending her money,
Sarah,"
he confessed,
dropping his head into his hands.
"For five years?"
I whispered,
counting the thousands of dollars that must have disappeared from our accounts without me noticing.
I thought we were saving for the boys' college.
I thought we were building a future.
Instead,
he was funding a ghost.
"I couldn't let her starve,"
he said,
"she was my sister."
"And I couldn't tell you because I knew you’d hate me for lying about the money,
and then the lies just got bigger and bigger until they were a mountain I couldn't climb over."
I reached out and finally touched the baby's hand.
Her tiny fingers curled around my thumb,
warm and soft.
The sensation sent a jolt of electricity through my arm,
reaching straight for the hole in my heart that had been empty for years.
She felt so real.
She felt like the dream I had been forced to give up.
But every time I looked at her,
I saw the five years of deception.
I saw the secret bank accounts.
I saw the husband who didn't trust me enough to tell me the truth.
"The doctor said another pregnancy would kill me,"
I reminded him,
my voice shaking,
"you knew how much I suffered knowing I couldn't give you a girl."
"I know,"
he said.
"You watched me cry every time a friend announced a gender reveal,"
I said,
the anger returning,
"you watched me pack away those newborn clothes in the garage and pretend I was okay."
"And all that time,
you were talking to her."
"You were waiting for this."
"No,"
he said,
"I wasn't waiting for her to die,
Sarah."
"I was trying to save her."
The baby shifted,
letting out a soft grunt in her sleep.
She was so small,
so fragile,
and yet she had the power to destroy everything we had built.
"What happens now?"
I asked,
my voice barely a whisper.
"The social worker is coming in an hour,"
James said,
"if we say yes,
she comes home with us."
"If we say no,
she goes into the system."
I looked at the girl.
I looked at the husband I no longer recognized.
I thought about my three boys at home,
waiting for their parents to return.
"We can't just take her,"
I said,
tears streaming down my face,
"we can't just pretend this is a happy ending."
"It’s not an ending,"
James said,
reaching across the bassinet to touch my hand,
"it’s a beginning,
if you’ll let it be."
I pulled my hand away.
"Don't,"
I said.
"You don't get to touch me right now."
I turned and walked out of the room,
leaving him alone with the baby and the wreckage of our life.
May you like
I needed air.
I needed to find a way to breathe in a world where my husband was a stranger.
