🥧 The Forty Pies Before Sunrise

Chapter 08 - The Second Baby

Rowan did not remember standing.

One moment she was on Miriam Kline’s plaid sofa with a brass key in her palm, and the next she was across the room, staring at a photograph of someone’s golden retriever as if a dog might explain how her dead mother could have carried a second baby.

“No,” Rowan said.

It was not an argument.

It was a plea.

Miriam’s face folded with grief. “I’m sorry.”

Lila looked from one adult to another. “Mom had a sister?”

“Or brother,” Officer Chen said gently.

“No,” Rowan repeated.

Because if June had another baby, then Rowan had spent her life missing not only a mother and grandmother, but someone small enough to have needed her too. Someone who might have grown up under another name. Someone who might be dead, lost, or worse—close enough to have passed her in a grocery store.

Miriam reached for her walker. “June wouldn’t tell me where she’d been. She said Robert had people watching the bus station. She said Warren wanted something she had taken from him.”

“What?” Harris asked.

“Paperwork. Maybe ledgers. She said if Agnes saw them, Warren would never touch the land.”

Rowan turned. “And the baby?”

Miriam’s mouth trembled. “Wrapped in a yellow blanket. Newborn or close to it. June said the child wasn’t hers by birth, but hers by promise.”

That sentence made no sense.

Rowan held onto it anyway.

“Hers by promise?” Lila said.

Miriam nodded. “She said a woman named Elise begged her to take the baby somewhere safe.”

Officer Chen wrote down the name.

Rowan paced toward the window. Outside, Briar Road curved beneath maple trees just beginning to turn. A mail truck rattled past. Life kept behaving like life.

“Why would June take someone else’s baby while leaving me with Robert?” Rowan asked.

The hurt in her own voice embarrassed her.

But there it was.

Miriam did not soften it with easy comfort. “Maybe she thought you were safer where you were for one more day. Maybe Robert found you before she could return. Maybe she made the wrong choice for the right reason. Mothers do that sometimes.”

Rowan looked at Lila.

Lila looked back with fourteen-year-old eyes suddenly older than the morning.

Harris’s radio murmured. He stepped into the hallway to answer.

Officer Chen closed her notebook. “The safe deposit box may help.”

“It may make everything worse,” Rowan said.

“Yes,” Chen admitted. “But it will be the truth.”

On the drive back to Maple Lane, Lila held the brass key between both hands as if it might fly away. Rowan kept both eyes on the road, though her mind was filled with yellow blankets, lost babies, and her mother moving through a night no one had ever explained.

When they pulled into the driveway, a white county sedan was parked by the curb.

Rowan knew bad news had a variety of uniforms.

This one wore a navy blazer and carried a clipboard.

The woman at the front steps introduced herself as Diana Mercer from Child and Family Services.

Rowan felt the blood leave her hands.

“We received a report,” Diana said carefully, glancing at Lila. “It alleges that your daughter was placed in an unsafe situation yesterday and may be involved in an elder exploitation matter.”

Lila’s mouth fell open.

Rowan did not move.

Warren Whitfield had wasted no time.

Officer Harris’s cruiser turned onto Maple Lane behind the county sedan, which told Rowan the police had expected this. That should have comforted her. It didn’t. Nothing involving clipboards and custody could comfort a single mother who had spent years proving she was enough.

Diana Mercer’s expression softened. “Ms. Price, I am not here to remove anyone. I am here because when a report mentions a minor, I have to document contact.”

Rowan nodded, but her throat had closed.

Lila stepped forward. “My mom didn’t make me do anything wrong.”

“I believe you,” Diana said. “I still have to ask questions.”

Inside, the house looked suddenly shabby through a stranger’s eyes. The thrift-store sofa. The chipped kitchen table. The pie tins stacked near the sink. The basket of unfolded laundry Rowan had planned to handle before police knocked her life sideways.

Diana took notes, asked about school, meals, supervision, the volunteer project. Lila answered politely at first, then with a tired steel that made Rowan ache with pride.

Officer Harris stood in the doorway, silent witness.

When Diana finished, she closed her folder. “This appears to be a retaliatory report.”

Rowan released a breath.

“I’ll document that,” Diana said. “But Ms. Price, be prepared. People who file reports like this often file more than one.”

After she left, Rowan sat at the kitchen table and put her face in her hands for exactly four seconds.

Then she lifted her head.

“Pack a bag,” she told Lila.

Lila blinked. “Where are we going?”

“To First County Bank.”

“It’s closed.”

“Then we’ll be there when it opens.”

Lila set the brass key on the table between them.