Chapter 17 - Nora
Fear has a sound.
It is the flat urgency in a doctor's voice when she stops explaining and starts commanding.
The operating room lights were too bright. Someone placed a cap over my hair. Someone else pressed a mask near my face.
I kept asking the same question.
"Is she okay? Is my baby okay?"
Dr. Ruiz squeezed my hand.
"We're taking care of both of you."
I wanted Margaret. I wanted my mother, who had been dead eight years. I wanted my father. For one weak second, I even wanted Roman.
Not the Roman from the recordings, but the man I once believed he was. Grief remembers people who no longer exist.
At 1:42 p.m., my daughter was born.
She was small, furious, and loud.
That first cry broke something open inside me.
"She's breathing," someone said.
I started sobbing.
"Her name is Nora," I whispered.
I had never told Roman the name.
Nora was my father's mother's name.
The nurses brought her close enough for me to touch her cheek before taking her for extra monitoring.
"She's doing well," Dr. Ruiz said. "A little early, but strong."
When I woke fully in recovery, Margaret sat beside me holding a photograph of Nora wrapped in a striped hospital blanket.
"Roman?" I asked.
Margaret hesitated.
"He knows she was born."
"Did he come?"
"He is downstairs."
I turned my head toward the window.
"I don't want him here."
"I know."
An hour later, a nurse brought a sealed letter.
"Your husband asked that you receive this. Security checked it."
I almost refused.
Then I opened it.
Savannah,
I heard our daughter is healthy. Thank God.
I know you believe I used you. I know what the recordings sound like. I can explain every part of it, but not through lawyers and police.
There is one thing your father never told you. If you expose Northstar, you will lose more than me.
Ask Miriam who originally funded the Reed trust.
I read the last line three times.
May you like
Then I looked at Miriam, who had just entered the room.
Her face told me she already knew.
