“What?” Drew turns toward her. “No! This is bullshit.”
I’m not done. “Where is your child?”
She looks at me as if I’ve asked the most preposterous question. Unease burrows deep inside, beneath my rib cage. The baby was the inciting incident. It was the first domino tipped. Why is it so outlandish that I would insist on proof of the thing that tore my life apart?
I raise my eyebrows at her, and Chelsea’s bravado shifts.
She’s scared of me. What have I ever done to this woman to warrant this level of fear?
“Where is the baby?” I demand.
My white, sleeveless blouse sticks to my back in the humidity. I’m glad I took my suit jacket off in the car. As the moisture thickens the air with the threat of rain, I’m one thundering heat wave away from passing out.
Drew steps forward, but it’s Chelsea who finally answers. “You lost it,” she says. “Remember?”
No… No, I do not remember. What is this devil with a golden halo of hair saying? “What are you talking about? I’m asking where the hell you and Drew’s kid is. The whole reason why we broke up? Fought that day? And I ended up in the path of a killer?”
I know; this logic goes against everything I’ve learned and accepted over the past few years. I can’t point the finger at Chelsea any more than I can point the finger at Drew for the events that led to my death.
Or can I?
A rush of anger assaults me, and suddenly the heat is boiling my blood.
“Just answer me!”
Drew’s features melt into sympathy, and that only makes me seethe more. “I think you’re confused, Cynthia.”
Now Chelsea: “You were the one that came to Drew’s that day,” she says. “You told me you were carrying his baby. You were upset. It caused a huge fight.”
The world is spinning in the wrong direction.
Drew: “You lost the baby,” he says, repeating Chelsea’s words. “I’m sorry, Cynthia.”
I hold out my hand, as if I can stop the barrage. The keys clang together noisily in my ears. A roar floods my head, and pressure builds…
I close my eyes to stop the sway. That day comes back with biting clarity. The emergence of a memory. The driveway. The mahogany door. My Guess Wedges.
No—not mine. I didn’t wear those kinds of shoes. Chelsea wore them.
Like a mirror being flipped, the memory inverts.
Me walking up the driveway, ringing the doorbell. Chelsea answering the door. Drew tracking me down at my apartment. The cops being sent.
The
baby.
My baby.
I was only a few weeks pregnant.
I’d just found out that morning.
You lost the baby.
I didn’t lose the baby; it was taken.
My hands go to my belly. My fingers find the scars. “Oh, God…”