I stopped at one.
“All right,” I said.
Adrian hesitated.
“What?”
“Enjoy the cake.”
I ended the call.
The nurse looked at me carefully.
“Is someone coming?”
I looked at my phone.
There was one number I had refused to call for almost two years.
My father.
I pressed it.
Gideon Vale answered before the second ring finished.
“Claire?”
I had not said his name.
Not even hello.
He heard me breathe.
Then:
“Where are you?”
My eyes filled.
“Willowcrest.”
“What happened?”
“I’m in labor.”
Silence.
Then I heard movement.
Keys.
A door.
“Are you alone?”
“Yes.”
“Not anymore.”
He disconnected.
The nurse wheeled me inside.
Twenty-three minutes later, Gideon Vale walked into Willowcrest Medical Center wearing an old charcoal coat, rain on his shoulders and absolute terror on his face.
Most people in Bellmere would have recognized him.
Financial papers regularly printed his photograph beside headlines about infrastructure funds, acquisitions and corporate restructuring.
