Chapter 3

“Ms. Bennett, there are no social-security contributions under your name. We can’t enroll you in maternity insurance.”

At the community services office, the employee pushed my paperwork back toward me.

I supported my lower back with one hand and took the stack of papers with the other.

“So I have to pay the entire cost of giving birth myself?”

“Yes. A standard vaginal delivery usually costs between twelve and fifteen thousand dollars. If complications require a C-section, it starts at thirty thousand.”

I walked down the steps with the documents in my hand and calculated everything.

Including the money I had borrowed, I had less than three thousand dollars.

Ethan had frozen every joint account. The savings I had before the marriage had been spent renovating the house.

And after I got pregnant, I had quit my job.

Ethan had told me to.

“You don’t need to work. I’ll take care of you. Just focus on the baby.”

Back then, Sophie had been sitting beside him, cracking sunflower seeds and smiling.

“Claire, you’re so lucky. Ethan treats you so well.”

Apparently, she had already been measuring my neck for a noose.

I went to three places looking for work.

At the first, the receptionist saw my stomach and immediately shook her head.

The second place at least let me sit down. The HR manager looked over my résumé and asked, “When’s your due date?”

“Next month.”

“I’m sorry, but we can’t hire someone who will need maternity leave in a few weeks.”

The third place was a small translation agency.

The owner was a woman in her fifties with graying hair and reading glasses. After looking over my résumé, she studied me for a long time.

“Advanced English certification, advanced Japanese, and you speak French too?”

“I minored in French in college.”

“Where did you work before?”

“Clearwater International. I handled business translation.”

The owner, Grace Harper, removed her glasses and set them on the desk.

“To be honest, someone with your qualifications shouldn’t be applying to a tiny agency like mine.”

“The big companies don’t want me.”

“Because of the pregnancy?”

I said nothing.

Grace leaned back in her chair after several seconds of silence.

“I can give you assignments and pay you per project. You won’t need to work regular hours. Six hundred dollars for a standard contract, double for rush jobs. If your health allows it, ten or so assignments a month should be enough to survive.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet.” Grace put her glasses back on. “If your work is bad, I’ll reject it just the same.”

By the time I left the agency, it was almost dark.

I took the bus back to my rented room—a tiny place in an old neighborhood. The rent was five hundred dollars a month, and there was no private bathroom.

The elderly landlady had seen my stomach and charged me an extra two hundred dollars as a deposit. She said she was afraid I might give birth in the room and ruin the mattress.

My phone vibrated in my pocket again.

This time, it wasn’t Sophie or Margaret.

It was Ethan.

His number.

I stared at the screen for five seconds before answering.

“Claire?”

It was Ethan’s voice.

He used to call me by my nickname.

“What is it?”

“Why are you harassing Sophie?”

My hand stopped moving.

“What are you talking about?”

“She said you stopped her at the hospital and wouldn’t let her leave. You even tried to take her things. She came home crying all night.”

The camel-colored coat.

My wedding ring.

The key she had taken from my hospital room.

In his version, I had tried to steal from her.

“Ethan, you believe every word she says?”

“She’s my wife. Why wouldn’t I believe her?”

I closed my eyes and leaned against the bus window.

Outside, the streetlights moved past one after another.

“Claire, I’m warning you. Don’t bother Sophie again. If you harass her, I won’t hesitate to call the police.”

After a pause, he added, “And return the house key. Sophie says you still have one.”

“She already took it.”

“She says you didn’t give it to her.”

I suddenly laughed.

Several people on the bus turned to look at me.

An eight-months-pregnant woman was leaning against the back seat, laughing until tears began sliding down her cheeks.

“Ethan, live well.”

“What does that mean?”

“Nothing. I hope you and your wife stay happy forever.”

I hung up and pressed my finger against the delete-contact button.

But I didn’t press it.

It wasn’t because I couldn’t let him go.

I suddenly realized that I needed to keep his number.

Not for him.

For the baby.

One day, my child would ask me who his father was. I needed something to prove that this man had existed—before I destroyed everything he had once meant to us.

The bus reached my stop.

I held onto the rail and slowly made my way to the door.

The driver glanced at me through the rearview mirror and waited an extra ten seconds before closing the doors.