A Birthday Worth More
Chapter 01 - A Birthday Worth More
The first thing Chloe noticed was the puddle creeping toward her bare feet.
It had been raining since noon, a mean November rain that bounced off the porch steps and gathered under the old brass threshold. She had been meaning to tell Vance the door needed weatherstripping. She had been meaning to tell him several things, but by then she was sitting on the cold marble with one palm pressed beneath her belly, watching blood seep into the hem of her blue maternity dress.
Her phone rang twice before her husband answered. Music spilled down the line: a piano, laughter, the peculiar clink of expensive glassware.
"Vance, I'm bleeding. Please come home."
"Chloe? I can barely hear you."
"Something's wrong with the baby. I need you."
A pause. Somebody called his name. His mother, probably. Evelyn had a way of saying Vance as though she were drawing back the curtains on a stage.
"Stop being dramatic," he said. "Mother's birthday comes first. Call the doctor if you're worried."
"I have called. They said an ambulance—"
"Then do that." His voice hardened. "I can't leave ninety people because you're upset."
The call ended. For a few seconds Chloe held the silent phone to her ear. She had spent six years excusing the small cruelties in Vance's voice. Exhaustion. Pressure at work. Evelyn's nerves. She found she had no excuse left that could make the floor warmer or bring him through the door.
"Stay with me, Noah," she whispered to the child inside her. "Please, sweetheart. Just stay."
She dialed emergency services and gave the address twice. She remembered to unlock the front door. Then she reached for the brown envelope that had fallen from her purse. It had arrived that morning, its seal broken while she stood beside the kitchen sink. Inside were two pages from a laboratory and a letter written in a careful, old-fashioned hand.
I believe you may be my daughter.
She had been trying to decide whether to answer that letter when the pain began.
The porch light dimmed behind a dark figure. For one foolish, hopeful instant, she thought Vance had come back. The man at the door wore a charcoal overcoat wet at the shoulders. Silver hair framed a severe face she knew only from newspaper photographs.
"Chloe Bennett?" he asked.
She recognized the voice. Arthur Sterling. In Chicago, people pronounced his surname in a lower register when they thought no one was listening. Men who owed him money called him a businessman. Men who feared him used other words.
"How did you find me?"
His gaze went to her bloodstained dress. All the authority in his expression disappeared.
"We can discuss that later. The ambulance is coming."
He knelt beside her, careful not to lift her or move her legs, and took off his coat to keep her warm. A younger man stood behind him, already speaking to the dispatcher. Arthur asked Chloe her name, how far along she was, whether she could feel the baby move. His questions were steady even when his hands were not.
"You shouldn't be here," she murmured.
"I know."
"I didn't invite you."
"I know that, too."
He looked briefly at the envelope. "Your mother called me. Marisol. She was afraid you wouldn't ask for help."
Chloe's eyes filled. Marisol had raised her, taught her to mend torn cuffs, and waited for every train until she was safely on it. She was fifty miles away, recovering from a knee operation, and somehow she had still managed to send someone.
The paramedics arrived with practiced urgency. At the hospital, doctors explained that the bleeding might be caused by a placental abruption. They needed to deliver the baby quickly. Chloe signed what she could. When she could no longer hold the pen, a nurse read each question aloud and waited for her answer.
"Where's my husband?" someone asked.
"At a birthday party," Chloe said. Nobody laughed.
Her son was born just after nine. She heard one sharp, astonishing cry before the operating room slipped out of focus. Later, she would remember that sound more vividly than the fear. It was a small voice declaring its right to remain in the world.
Arthur waited outside the operating room with his untouched coffee. He was told Noah needed observation but was breathing on his own. Chloe had lost considerable blood; the surgical team was treating her and she would require close monitoring. He listened without interrupting, then asked whether he could see the boy. The nurse told him visiting would depend on the baby's condition and the parents' permission.
He waited.
Nearly two hours later, Vance arrived still wearing the black tuxedo from his mother's party. A spray of gold confetti clung to his cuff. He walked past the reception desk talking on his phone.
"I told her to get checked," he said. "What else was I supposed to do?"
He stopped when he saw Arthur Sterling sitting beside the nursery window. A nurse had finally permitted Arthur a brief supervised visit after Chloe, awake for a few minutes, had asked for him by name. He held Noah with the awkward concentration of a man handling something more valuable than anything he owned.
"Mr. Sterling?" Vance said. "What are you doing here?" His eyes found the child. "My son? Is he all right?"
Arthur examined the young man before him. The polished shoes. The champagne breath. The complete absence of Chloe's name.
"His name is Noah," Arthur said.
"Of course. And Chloe? Where is she?"
"You remembered to ask."
Vance flushed. "With respect, sir, this is a family matter."
Arthur looked down at the infant's tiny fist, curled against the blanket. He had once held another baby in a hospital room, a daughter with dark hair and a stubborn little chin. Then she had vanished, and for thirty-one years every ordinary day had carried the same quiet emptiness.
"It is," he said. "Chloe is my daughter."
Vance stared at him. Behind the nursery window, a nurse adjusted the blanket over Noah's legs. The world continued with an indifference Vance found suddenly unbearable.
"That's impossible," he said. "Chloe was adopted. Her father was a mechanic."
"The man who raised her mattered," Arthur answered. "That doesn't alter what the records say."
"What records?"
Arthur stood and returned Noah to the nurse. He had no appetite for threatening a man while a child lay between them. He did, however, have a question.
"Before you call your mother," he said, "ask yourself why she knew Chloe's birth name before Chloe did."
Vance's expression changed. Not surprise this time. Recognition.
May you like
Arthur saw it, and the relief of finding his daughter gave way to an older, colder fear.
Because Vance had not asked how Evelyn could possibly know.
