Eight Months Pregnant, My Husband Locked Me in a Freezing Cabin for His Ex on Christmas Eve novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: The Voicemail

We sat at my kitchen table, the four of us, with the deputy standing by the door.

Whitney had made tea. I didn't touch mine.

"Start from the day she called you," I said.

Whitney held her cup in both hands.

"December eighteenth. Joyce called to say how sorry she was about my mother. She said I shouldn't be alone for the holidays and I should come stay with family."

"Your mother was her best friend," Rhonda said.

"For forty years. That's why I came."

"And then?"

"She put me in your guest room, and she told me you were thrilled."

"I wasn't asked."

"I know that now." Whitney turned the cup. "She had me sign a stack of papers. A hospital form, a release, something for the foundation. She said it was for your convenience. That I could pick up June's records if you were busy."

"You signed my name."

"I signed mine. I never touched yours."

"Why does Joyce want you close to my baby?"

Whitney didn't answer right away.

Then she said, very low, "I can't have children."

Nobody spoke.

"I had cancer at twenty-six," she said. "It's why Neil and I ended. I couldn't give him what his mother wanted. Joyce knew all of it, and she never stopped being kind to me."

"That's not the same as wanting my daughter," I said.

"I never said I wanted her."

"You said you were supposed to be the one holding her."

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