My appendix ruptured at 2 a.m., and I called my parents seventeen times before the world began to blur. My mother finally texted back: “Your sister’s baby shower is tomorrow. We can’t leave now.”

When Claire handed him to me, he grabbed my necklace and babbled sternly.

“He has opinions,” I said.

“He gets that from every side,” Claire replied.

For once, we laughed together without it hurting.

Then the elevator doors opened.

My mother stepped out.

The hallway went quiet.

She was thinner than I remembered. Still elegant. Still composed. But there was something brittle about her now, like porcelain after a crack has been repaired.

No attorney.

No pearls.

Just Eleanor.

Claire stiffened.

Richard stepped slightly forward, then stopped himself. He looked at me instead.

My choice.

My mother approached slowly.

Gerald moved closer but did not speak.

“Holly,” she said.

“Eleanor.”

The name hit her. I saw it.

She looked toward the courtroom door.

“I heard about today.”

Of course she had.

Eleanor Crawford always had ways of hearing things she had not been told.

“I’m not here to stop it,” she said.

No one answered.

She swallowed.

“I came because… because there was a time when I could have chosen differently.”

My heartbeat slowed.

Not softened.

Slowed.

“I have spent months trying to decide whether I regret what I did,” she continued. “Some days, I still think I had no choice. Some days, I hate you for proving I did.”