Chapter 2 - The Ghost of Eleanor Vance
The linoleum floor felt freezing beneath my bare palms as I struggled to pull oxygen into my lungs.
James dropped to his knees beside me, his hands reaching out to catch my trembling shoulders.
"Don't touch me," I gasped, recoiling as if his skin were made of fire.
"Don't you dare lay a hand on me until you explain what you just said."
In the plastic bassinet across the room, the baby shifted slightly, letting out a small, mewling sigh that sounded like a wounded bird.
James pulled his hands back, hanging his head so low his forehead nearly touched his knees.
"Twelve years ago, Claire," he began, his voice barely above a whisper.
"Two full years before I sat down across from you at that coffee shop on Fourth Street."
I stared at him, my heart hammering violently against my ribs.
"I was engaged once before," he admitted, the words dragging out of him like heavy stones.
"Her name was Sarah Vance."
The name struck the air between us like an iron bell.
In our eleven years together, James had told me about his childhood, his college roommates, and his quiet regrets.
He had never once spoken the name Sarah Vance.
"She was the daughter of Richard and Eleanor Vance," James continued, refusing to look up.
"Her family owned half the commercial real estate along the riverfront."
"We were young, idealistic, and completely blind to the world."
"Then, three months before our planned wedding, Sarah discovered a lump beneath her collarbone."
"It was stage four Hodgkin lymphoma, aggressive and resistant to first-line therapies."
I leaned back against the wall of the hospital room, my breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps.
"Why did you never tell me this?"
"Because it felt like a lifetime that had died and burned to ashes," he replied, finally raising his reddened eyes to meet mine.
"Before Sarah began her massive, sterilizing radiation and heavy chemotherapy, her doctors urged her to preserve her fertility."
"Her parents spared no expense."
"Sarah begged me to provide the other half."
"She looked at me from a hospital bed, bald and weighing eighty pounds, and said that having a frozen embryo was her only reason to survive the treatments."
"I was twenty-three years old, Claire."
"I loved her, and I believed she was going to die within weeks."
"So I went into that clinic, signed the legal forms, and gave her what she asked for."
I pointed a shaking finger at the clear plastic bassinet where the newborn girl lay wrapped in pink.
"And this child?"
"Where did she come from if Sarah died twelve years ago?"
James wiped a tear from his cheek with the back of his sleeve.
"Sarah didn't die back then."
"She went into a miraculous, unexpected remission that lasted nearly a decade."
"Her family sent her to a specialized clinic in Switzerland to recover."
"While she was in Europe, our relationship completely collapsed under the weight of her trauma and her mother's suffocating control."
"Sarah wrote me a letter saying she could never return to our old life because it reminded her too much of the cancer."
"She released me, broke the engagement, and severed all ties."
"I moved three states away, started my teaching career, and eventually met you."
"When I married you, Claire, I swear on our three sons' lives, I believed those stored embryos had been destroyed or abandoned."
"The clinic contract stated that stored biological material would be discarded after ten years unless renewed in writing."
"I never renewed it."
"I assumed it was over."
I pushed myself up from the floor, my legs shaking so hard I had to brace myself against the examination table.
"Then why is there a living child breathing in that bassinet right now, James?"
"Because three years ago, Sarah's cancer returned with a vengeance," a strange, quiet voice spoke from the doorway.
I whipped my head around.
Standing in the doorway of the private room was a tall, slender woman dressed in a faded hospital gown and a knitted cardigan.
Her dark hair was pulled into a loose knot, and her face was pale, exhausted, and lined with profound grief.
She was holding an IV pole with one hand and leaning against the doorframe for support.
"Who are you?" I demanded, my defensive instincts flaring like wildfire.
The woman stepped forward slowly, looking not at James, but directly into my eyes.
"My name is Maya Ramirez," she said softly, her voice thick with emotion.
May you like
"I am the surrogate who carried this baby."
"And Sarah Vance passed away in the hospice wing next door less than twelve hours ago."
