Chapter 7

The final weeks of my pregnancy passed in a haze of preparation and introspection. The nursery came together—the crib we'd assembled, the soft yellow walls, the pile of tiny clothes and blankets, the stuffed animals that Jonah insisted on buying in sets. We'd settled on the name Miriam, after my grandmother, a woman I'd never met but whose strength I'd been told about my whole life. I hoped I was doing her proud.

The city was moving on from the scandal. The dinner confession had been the talk of the society pages for a few weeks, then quietly superseded by other stories—a divorce, a political scandal, a new restaurant opening that everyone had to try. Selene's name appeared less and less, fading from the collective memory like a half-remembered song.

I heard through a mutual acquaintance that she was doing better. She'd completed the treatment program, had found a new therapist. She was living in a small apartment in Brooklyn, working on rebuilding her life from the ground up. She hadn't tried to contact me. I hadn't tried to contact her.

The quiet paper trail of what she'd done—the vanished clinic statement, the marked duplicate of my own innocence—was the machine that had ground her life into dust. It had been silent. But it had been unstoppable.

I went to the hospital on a Tuesday morning, two weeks before my due date, for a routine check-up. It was the same hospital where I'd been attacked, the same maternity suite where Selene had found me. I'd been back several times since, and the sight of the pale-rose walls no longer made my heart race. It had become familiar, a place I could walk through without flinching. The scar on my temple had faded to a thin white line, barely visible unless you knew to look. I knew. I looked every single day.

Dr. Ellis was running late, and the waiting room was crowded with other expectant mothers, their partners, the low hum of nervous chatter. I found a seat by the window and watched the city below. The morning rush was in full swing, the sidewalks thick with people heading to work, their lives a blur of coffee cups and phone screens. I felt a strange distance from all of it, as if I were watching the world through a pane of glass that had been recently cleaned.

My phone buzzed. A text from Jonah.

*Thinking of you. Let me know how it goes.*

I smiled and typed back.

*Will do. See you tonight.*

The nurse called my name, and I followed her down the familiar corridor. The maternity ward had been reconfigured since my last visit—new paint, new chairs, a fresh coat of optimism applied to the walls. But the geography was the same. I knew exactly which room was mine, the one with the pale-rose walls and the floor-to-ceiling window. I wondered if they'd changed the carpet.

Dr. Ellis was brisk and efficient, her warm smile a constant in a world that seemed to be shifting under my feet. She measured my belly, listened to the baby's heartbeat, asked the standard questions. Everything was on track. The baby was healthy, strong, eager to make her entrance.

"We should talk about your birth plan," Dr. Ellis said, flipping through her tablet. "Any preferences?"

"I want it to be calm," I said. "Quiet. I want the lights low and the noise minimal. I want to be the one who holds her first."

"That's very standard," Dr. Ellis said, nodding. "Very doable. And your husband will be there?"

"Yes. We've been practicing. He's very good at holding my hand."

We discussed the details for another few minutes. The possibility of induction, the pain management options, the signs to watch for. I listened attentively, filing the information away in the part of my brain that was still capable of retaining new data. The rest of my mental capacity was already full of Miriam—her name, her face, the terrifying and wonderful weight of being responsible for a new life.

"And how are you sleeping?" Dr. Ellis asked, looking up from her tablet.

"Terribly," I admitted. "I'm up every two hours. Not for the bathroom anymore—I've gotten used to that. It's the dreams."

"What kind of dreams?"

"Violent ones. I dream I'm being attacked again. Selene shows up in my hospital room, but she's not alone. There are other people with her, people I can't see clearly, and they're all holding something—shards of the vase, pieces of the IV pole. And I can't move. I can't run. I just have to stand there and take it."

Dr. Ellis set down her tablet, her expression shifting from professional to concerned. "Amara, I'm not a psychiatrist, but those dreams sound like a symptom of trauma. Have you considered talking to someone?"

"I've been thinking about it," I said, which was the truth. The thoughts had been circling for weeks, a nervous flock of birds I couldn't quite land. "I just haven't made the appointment yet."

"Make the appointment," Dr. Ellis said firmly. "For your sake, and for the baby's. You can't pour from an empty cup, and you've been running on fumes for months."

I promised I would, and I meant it. There was something about the honesty of the moment, sitting in the bright clinical room with my hands resting on the curve of my belly, that made me want to take the next step forward. I'd survived the attack. I'd built the counter-evidence. I'd watched Selene fall. But I hadn't yet survived the aftermath—the quiet moments when the memory of that night came flooding back, unbidden and unwelcome.

The walk to the elevator was uneventful. I pressed the button, waiting as the floors ticked past. The doors slid open, and I stepped inside, alone for a moment.