Chapter 7 - The Room Was Blue Again
Fourteen months after my divorce became final, I stood outside the same nursery door.
It was half open again.
But everything was different.
The Chanel garment bags were gone.
Meredith’s voice was gone.
Grant’s promises were gone.
Soft morning sunlight covered the cloud-blue walls.
And from inside came the smallest sound imaginable.
A baby crying.
“Evelyn?”
I turned.
My father stood behind me holding two coffees.
“You’re supposed to be sleeping.”
“I tried.”
“You’ve been home from the hospital for three days.”
“Four.”
“That proves you need sleep.”
I smiled.
Then the crying grew louder.
Dad immediately looked terrified.
“What does that mean?”
“She’s hungry.”
“How do you know?”
“Because she’s always hungry.”
“That seems expensive.”
“She’s a Hartwell.”
He smiled.
“Fair point.”
I walked into the nursery.
My daughter, Grace, was kicking inside her bassinet.
One of the two embryos had survived implantation.
One had become her.
Her tiny face wrinkled as I lifted her.
“Okay,” I whispered. “Mommy’s here.”
Dad remained near the doorway.
“Can I hold her?”
“You’ve held her approximately seventy times.”
“Seventy-one seems reasonable.”
I handed Grace over.
Watching my father cradle his granddaughter should have hurt.
Once, it would have.
Because Grant had taught me to associate children with failure.
With humiliation.
With being replaced.
Now I understood something much simpler.
Grace was not proof that I had won.
She was not revenge.
She was my daughter.
The doorbell rang downstairs.
Marcus appeared moments later.
“Ms. Hartwell?”
I had returned to my maiden name.
“Yes?”
“Delivery.”
He handed me an envelope.
No return address.
Inside was a handwritten note.
Evelyn,
I heard about Grace. I hope she grows up knowing how strong her mother is. I’m sorry for what I did inside that room.
—Skye
There was also a photograph.
Skye holding a baby boy.
She looked happy.
I placed the photograph in a drawer.
Not every person who hurt you needed to remain a villain forever.
Some people were simply weak when you met them.
Others were manipulated.
And some deserved the consequences they created.
Grant belonged to the last category.
His father’s financial scheme eventually collapsed under civil litigation and regulatory scrutiny. Meredith lost the lifestyle she had spent years pretending was hers.
Grant moved out of Manhattan.
I never asked where.
One afternoon, months later, Rebecca called.
“I have something you might enjoy.”
“What?”
“Grant applied for a position at one of Hartwell Global’s competitors.”
I laughed.
“Did he get it?”
“No.”
“Did we interfere?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Good.”
Rebecca paused.
“Their board apparently knows how to use Google.”
I laughed harder.
Grace stirred against my chest.
“Rebecca?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For making sure I didn’t destroy my life just because I wanted to destroy his.”
“That’s what expensive lawyers are for.”
After the call, I carried Grace upstairs.
The cream blanket with silver stars lay across the rocking chair.
I had rescued it from the trash bag that first night.
For months, I couldn’t touch it.
Now I wrapped it gently around my daughter.
Grace blinked up at me.
“You know something?”
She yawned.
“Your mother once thought this room was cursed.”
Her tiny fingers closed around mine.
I smiled.
“I was wrong.”
Dad appeared at the doorway.
“Talking to yourself again?”
“To your granddaughter.”
“She understand you?”
“More than most board members.”
He walked inside.
For a while, neither of us spoke.
Five years earlier, I had painted those walls believing happiness would arrive according to a schedule.
Then came treatments.
Loss.
Silence.
And a husband who discovered exactly where I was most vulnerable and used it against me.
But the strangest thing about surviving betrayal was that eventually, the betrayal stopped being the most important part of the story.
Grace began falling asleep.
Dad whispered, “You happy?”
I looked around the room.
At the cloud-blue walls.
At the silver-star blanket.
At my daughter.
Then at the nursery door.
It was wide open.
“Yes.”
This time, I didn't have to pretend.
I kissed Grace’s forehead.
“I’m happy.”
May you like
And for the first time in five years, the nursery was no longer a monument to what I had lost.
It was simply my daughter’s room.
