Ethan took her face between his hands.
“Listen to me. I never said that. I would never say that.”
“I know.”
“Why didn’t you ask me?”
Her answer came almost soundlessly.
“Because she showed me the message.”
Ethan froze.
“What message?”
Olivia reached for her phone.
Her fingers shook as she scrolled.
Then she showed him a screenshot.
A text conversation.
His name at the top.
His profile picture.
A message supposedly from him:
Mom’s right. Liv worries too much. If the pills are making her tired, get rid of them. Don’t tell her I said anything or she’ll make it a whole thing.
Ethan stared at the screen.
His own face looked back at him.
His own name.
Words he had never written.
He looked at the timestamp.
Tuesday, 8:42 p.m.
He remembered that Tuesday.
He had been presenting to a client in Houston.
Phone locked in his backpack for nearly three hours.
“This isn’t me.”
“I know.”
“How?”
Olivia gave a broken laugh.
“Because three days later you asked me if I had remembered to take my medicine.”
Ethan closed his eyes.
“And you still didn’t tell me?”
She looked ashamed.
“Your mom said if I accused her of lying, she’d tell you I was trying to split the family apart.”
He stood so fast the chair beside the bed tipped backward.
Downstairs, Diane was already packing a purse.
Ethan came into the living room holding Olivia’s phone.
“Who made this?”
Diane glanced at the screen.
No answer.
“Who made the fake text?”
Vanessa went pale.
Courtney looked frightened.
Madison started crying again.
Diane straightened.
“You’re behaving irrationally.”
“Who made it?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
And that was the wrong answer.
Ethan’s expression became almost peaceful.
He looked at his mother.
Then at each sister.
“Your comfortable life ends tonight.”
No one moved.
He pointed toward the staircase.
“You have one hour to pack what you need for tonight.”
Diane stared.
“You’re throwing your mother into the street?”
“No. I’m putting you in the hotel I already pay for through your travel account. Tomorrow, you find somewhere else.”
Vanessa gasped.
“What about us?”
“You’re adults.”
“Ethan!”
“Pack.”
Courtney began shouting.
“You’re choosing her over your own blood?”
Ethan turned toward her.
“I’m choosing the woman carrying my son over people who threw away her medication and forged messages in my name.”
“We didn’t forge anything!”
“Then tell me who did.”
Silence.
Ethan nodded.
“That’s what I thought.”
Diane stepped close.
Her eyes were shiny now.
Not soft.
Furious.
“You will regret this.”
Ethan looked at her for a long moment.
“I already do.”
He pointed upstairs.
“I regret every time Olivia cried when I wasn’t here. Every dinner I paid for while she ate leftovers. Every bill I covered while you taught her that kindness meant obedience.”
His voice cracked for the first time.
“And I regret trusting you more than I checked on my own wife.”
Diane picked up her purse.
“You’ve always been weak where women are concerned.”
Ethan almost smiled.
“No, Mom.”
He looked toward the ceiling above them, where Olivia rested.
“I was weak where you were concerned.”
That landed differently.
Diane flinched.
Ethan called a rideshare.
Then he went into the kitchen and photographed every medication bottle Olivia still had.
He called Dr. Morris again.
When he explained that the blood pressure medication had been discarded, the doctor did not hesitate.
“Bring Olivia to the hospital.”
Ethan’s stomach clenched.
“Now?”
“Now.”
Twenty minutes later, Olivia was in the passenger seat of Ethan’s SUV with the seat reclined and a hospital bag in the back.
Diane and the sisters were still packing.
Ethan did not wait for them to finish.
The drive to Baylor Scott & White felt endless.
Streetlights streaked across the windshield.
Olivia kept one hand on her stomach.
Ethan kept glancing toward her.
“Baby moving?”
“Yes.”
“Headache?”
“A little.”
“Vision okay?”
“Yes.”
Her answers were quiet.
At one red light, Ethan gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles whitened.
Olivia reached across the console.
“Ethan.”
He looked at her.
“I’m here.”
“I know.”
“No. You don’t understand.”
His voice broke.
“I thought providing was enough.”
She squeezed his hand.
“You were trying.”
“I left you alone with them.”
“You trusted your family.”
“I should’ve trusted what I saw.”
“What did you see?”
He thought about it.
The way Olivia stopped wearing lipstick because Diane called it attention-seeking.
The way she stopped ordering her favorite Thai food because Vanessa complained about the smell.
The way she apologized whenever she sat down.
The way she once told Ethan, laughing awkwardly, that she was becoming “lazy” during pregnancy.
He had kissed her forehead and said she could be as lazy as she wanted.
He thought that had reassured her.
He had not asked who taught her to call exhaustion laziness.
“All of it,” he whispered.
At the hospital, Olivia’s blood pressure was high enough that the nurse’s smile disappeared.
A monitor was wrapped around her stomach.
Another around her arm.
The baby’s heartbeat filled the room.
Fast.
