Chapter 22: Her Own Name

Cassidy's POV

Travis asked to meet me at the house on Larkin Street the next morning.

I went because Eli said, "You don't owe him. But you'll wonder if you don't."

He was right.

I left the baby with Eli's mother and drove across town alone.

The brick two-story looked smaller in daylight.

The porch light was on, and the wreath Gail had hung in November was still on the door, brown and shedding.

Travis was waiting at the dining table.

He had cleaned the house.

The papers were laid out in the place where I had left my ring, a tidy stack with a pen on top.

"Thank you for coming," he said.

"You said one more thing."

He nodded and didn't sit.

"The final decree is ready. It's on the table. You've got the house and your account, and I've signed everything."

His hands were in his pockets.

"I won't contest anything. But I'd like to ask you for the name."

"What name?"

"Hers. I'd like her to have Dunning on the birth certificate. As her last name, or her middle one. I'd take the middle."

He swallowed.

"I'd like her to know where she comes from."

I looked at him across the table I had set for ten years of dinners.

He believed it. That was the awful part.

He truly thought it was a small thing to ask.

"No," I said.

"Cass..."

"No, Travis."

"It's only a name."

"It's the name Gail wanted on a card with a gold ribbon," I said.

"She sent it to my hospital room the day my daughter was born."

His face tightened.

"That isn't why I'm asking."

"I know it isn't. But you're asking the way she did."

I kept my voice level.

"The family has a claim, and I'm the one who has to explain why I won't give it."

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