The Woman Named Elise
Chapter 05 - The Woman Named Elise
Maria woke before dawn to the sound of a machine breathing beside her.
For one frightened moment, she thought it belonged to the baby.
Then pain, dull and heavy, reminded her where she was.
A hospital room. Dim lights. A blanket tucked around her. An IV taped to the back of her hand. Her body felt emptied and sore in a way that did not feel clean. It felt like something had been taken and something worse had been left behind.
Hannah sat in the corner chair, still wearing her coat.
She looked older than she had the day before.
That was what Maria noticed first, and that was when she began to cry.
Not loudly. Not dramatically. Just a quiet leaking of tears into the pillow.
Hannah woke at the sound.
For a second, mother and daughter stared at each other across all the things they had not said.
Then Hannah stood.
“Do you need the nurse?”
“I need you not to hate me.”
Hannah stopped halfway to the call button.
Her face went tight.
“That is not a fair thing to ask me right now.”
Maria closed her eyes.
“You’re right.”
The words surprised Hannah. Maria had spent a lifetime smoothing conflict with soft excuses. Saying you’re right did not fix anything, but it opened a door neither of them had expected.
Hannah sat on the edge of the chair again.
“Who is Elise Vale?”
Maria’s fingers curled in the blanket.
“She said she ran private adoptions for embryos.”
“How did you meet her?”
“At St. Agnes.” Maria looked toward the window, though the blinds were closed. “After choir practice. She was speaking to women about late-life grief. Not pregnancy at first. Grief. She said women lose children in all kinds of ways. To death. To distance. To silence.”
Hannah flinched.
Maria saw it and hated herself.
“I didn’t mean you.”
“Yes, you did.”
Maria looked down. “Maybe I did. Not in anger. In loneliness.”
Hannah folded her arms.
The old defense.
Maria knew she had earned it.
“Elise was gentle,” Maria said. “She knew things. About your divorce. About the embryos. About Mark refusing to sign anything. She said sometimes men use unborn children like property and call it law.”
Hannah’s jaw tightened.
“She was not wrong about that.”
“No.” Maria’s voice cracked. “That’s why I believed the rest.”
Hannah leaned forward.
“What rest?”
“She said you had signed a private relinquishment because it hurt too much to deal with the court. She said you didn’t want to tell me because you thought I’d judge you.”
“I would have told you if I’d done that.”
“I know that now.”
“Did you know it then?”
Maria did not answer fast enough.
Hannah looked away.
That was another wound.
Maria kept going because shame had to become useful or it would drown her.
“Elise showed me papers. She said an embryo had no chance unless someone carried it. She said younger couples passed over complicated cases. She said I could give a life a chance.”
“At sixty-six.”
Maria nodded once.
“It sounds insane when someone else says it.”
“It sounded insane when you hid it too.”
“I told myself Sarah had Isaac when she was ninety.”
Hannah stared at her.
“Mom.”
“I know.” Maria gave a broken laugh. “I know. People use the Bible badly when they want permission.”
Despite everything, Hannah almost smiled.
Then her face hardened again.
“How much did you pay her?”
Maria swallowed.
“Forty-two thousand dollars.”
Hannah stood so fast the chair scraped.
“Mom.”
“I used the equity line.”
“On the house?”
“I thought I was building a nursery.”
“You nearly lost your house.”
Maria whispered, “I nearly lost more than that.”
Hannah turned toward the window. The blinds showed only thin blue morning.
For the first time since arriving, she looked less angry than afraid.
“Elise forged my signature,” Hannah said.
Maria closed her eyes.
“I didn’t know.”
“Mark is involved.”
Maria opened them again.
“What?”
“He showed up last night.”
Maria tried to sit up, then winced.
Hannah moved by instinct, one hand lifting before she caught herself. Maria saw the motion stop. The almost-touch.
It hurt more tenderly than no movement at all.
“Mark knew?” Maria asked.
“Mark profited.”
Maria’s face changed.
Not shock exactly.
Recognition.
Hannah saw it. “What?”
Maria stared at the blanket.
“The night Elise brought me the final papers, she said something strange. She said a man like Mark did not deserve to decide who became a mother.”
Hannah’s breath caught.
“She knew him.”
“She said she knew men like him.”
“No, Mom. That’s different.”
Maria looked toward the door as if Elise might be there, smiling with her soft cardigan and silver cross necklace.
“She came to my house,” Maria whispered. “Many times.”
Hannah’s stomach turned.
“When?”
“Tuesday mornings. When I had the garden club.”
“Did you ever leave her alone?”
Maria’s face went pale.
“In the den.”
Hannah closed her eyes.
The den held the rolltop desk, the mortgage papers, Maria’s passwords written in a little green notebook because she still did not trust her phone.
And the safe where Hannah’s divorce file had been stored for months while she recovered from the separation.
A knock came at the door.
Dr. Parker entered with a chart in his hand and a look on his face that made both women stop breathing.
“We found something in the lab work,” he said.
Hannah stepped closer. “What?”
Dr. Parker looked at Maria, then at Hannah.
“The tissue markers do not match the consent paperwork.”
Maria whispered, “What does that mean?”
“It means whatever was implanted in you did not come from Hannah’s embryos.”
Relief struck Hannah so hard she had to grab the rail.
Then Dr. Parker continued.
“And that may mean Hannah’s embryos are still missing.”
The room fell silent.
May you like
Because Maria’s crime had just become something larger.
And somewhere, the life Hannah thought had been stolen from her might still be out there in someone else’s hands.
