Chapter 3 - The Messages No One Answered
Adelaide sat alone in an examination room, staring at the test in her hands.
She had imagined telling Elias about a pregnancy many times.
In those dreams, she placed a small pair of baby shoes beside his morning coffee. Sophie discovered them first, screamed with excitement, and spent the next hour choosing baby names.
Reality looked nothing like that.
Adelaide called Elias.
The call went directly to voicemail.
She tried again that evening.
No answer.
She sent a message.
We need to talk. It is important.
Elias saw the message while Margaret sat across from him in his office.
“What does she want?” Margaret asked.
“I don’t know.”
“She probably wants to continue the argument.”
Elias placed the phone facedown.
He intended to answer when he was calmer.
Before he had the chance, a crisis at his company required him to fly to Singapore for six weeks.
His assistant, Nora, managed his calls while he was gone.
Margaret told Nora that Elias did not want Adelaide’s messages forwarded unless there was a medical emergency involving Sophie.
Adelaide called his office three times.
Each time, Nora said Elias was unavailable.
Adelaide sent an email explaining the pregnancy.
It was automatically placed into a filtered folder Nora had created at Margaret’s request.
Finally, Adelaide wrote a letter.
She placed the first ultrasound image inside and delivered the envelope to Elias’s house.
Margaret was there when it arrived.
She recognized Adelaide’s handwriting.
For several minutes, she stood alone in the entrance hall holding the envelope.
She told herself she was protecting Sophie.
She told herself Adelaide would take Elias away from the family he already had.
She told herself the pregnancy might not even be his.
Then she placed the envelope inside the locked bottom drawer of the study desk.
When Elias returned from Singapore, he found Adelaide’s apartment empty.
She had moved to a smaller home near the hospital.
Her old telephone number had been disconnected after months of unwanted calls from reporters covering a medical lawsuit involving one of her colleagues.
Elias interpreted her silence as proof that she wanted to disappear.
Adelaide interpreted his silence as a decision.
She attended her appointments alone.
She listened to the baby’s heartbeat alone.
She chose furniture for the nursery alone.
At night, she sometimes opened the small box containing her engagement ring.
Then she remembered the way Elias had asked, “Is it?” after she told him Margaret’s accusation was a lie.
Adelaide did not want to raise her child inside a relationship where she constantly had to prove her goodness.
She decided she would not contact him again.
The baby would know who her father was when the time came.
But Adelaide would not beg Elias to believe her.
Meanwhile, Sophie began asking questions.
“When is Adelaide coming back?”
Elias usually answered, “I don’t know.”
“Did she stop loving us?”
“No.”
“Then why did she leave?”
Elias never had an answer that did not make him feel ashamed.
One evening, Sophie stood in the doorway of his office holding the stuffed rabbit Adelaide had given her.
“I think Grandma made her go,” she said.
Elias looked up.
“Why would you say that?”
“Because Grandma said everything would be normal again after Adelaide left.”
The words stayed with him.
But before he could question Margaret, Sophie changed the subject.
A child’s observation was easy to dismiss.
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Until the night Elias carried Sophie into Adelaide’s emergency room and discovered the woman he had lost was seven months pregnant.
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