Chapter 8: Eleanor
She arrived at 4:47 in the morning, after eleven hours that I will not describe in detail except to say that Diane held my hand for most of them and at one point told the attending nurse a joke so terrible that I laughed in spite of everything and the nurse looked genuinely offended.
Six pounds, four ounces.
Dark hair, like Lucas.
Diane cried.
I did not, right away.
I held her and looked at her face and felt something settle in my chest that had been unsettled for so long I had forgotten what the other state felt like.
I named her Eleanor.
Brandon was notified through Rachel, as per the temporary parenting arrangement the court had approved two days earlier.
He was entitled to be informed of the birth.
He was not entitled to be present without my consent, and I had not given it.
He sent flowers to the hospital.
Pale pink roses.
No card.
I asked the nurse to put them in the waiting room.
Lucas and Amelia came with Diane the next morning.
Lucas stood at the edge of the hospital bed and looked at Eleanor with the expression of someone being introduced to a responsibility.
"She's very small," he said.
"You were smaller," I told him.
"Was I?"
"You were.
And you were very loud."
He considered this seriously.
Then he reached out one careful finger and touched Eleanor's hand.
Her fingers closed around it automatically, the way newborns do.
Lucas looked up at me.
"She knows me," he said.
"She does," I said.
Amelia had already named her Gerald.
We were home — Diane's home — by the end of the week.
Eleanor slept in a borrowed bassinet beside my bed.
Lucas checked on her every morning before breakfast with the dedication of a small and very serious security guard.
Rachel called on the ninth day.
"Brandon's team has requested a meeting," she said.
"Not a hearing.
A meeting.
Mercer & Voss, Brandon, Rachel, me, and a mediator."
"Why?"
"Because the forensic accounting report was submitted to the court yesterday.
And because the guardian ad litem interviewed Lucas on Wednesday."
I was quiet for a moment.
"What did Lucas say?"
"The guardian ad litem's report is confidential until it's submitted to the court.
But she called me afterward." Rachel paused.
"She said he was very clear."
May you like
I looked at Eleanor, asleep in the bassinet.
"Set up the meeting," I said.
