Chapter 15: The Lobby

Caleb's POV

They discharged Camille on the third morning.

The baby stayed upstairs in an incubator with a tube taped to her cheek.

I was in the lobby with Margo, waiting for the elevator, when the doors opened on a wheelchair.

Camille sat in it in the same cream sweater she had worn to the shower.

Jasper stood beside her holding a plastic hospital bag.

Behind them came Lorna, and behind Lorna came eleven relatives from the group chat.

They had come to carry the Dunning grandchild home, and they had come in a crowd to do it.

Camille saw me and her face broke open.

"Caleb."

"Camille."

"Please. Just a minute."

"You can say it here."

She pushed up out of the chair with both hands and took two steps toward me.

Then she went down on her knees on the lobby tiles.

I had seen her do it once before, in our bedroom, five years ago.

A cousin gasped.

A man near the gift shop lifted his phone.

"Sign the form," Camille said. "She's your daughter in every way that counts. You painted her nursery."

"I painted it for a child I thought was mine."

"She doesn't know that."

"She doesn't have to know it. You do."

"Caleb, I'm begging you."

"You begged me once. I forgave you. You used that to build a second house."

"I was scared."

"You were planning."

She took my hand in both of hers.

Her fingers were ice cold.

"I'll leave Dexter," she said. "I'll tell everyone it was a mistake. Please, she'll have nothing."

"She'll have a mother."

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