Chapter 8 - The Nursery With Two Names
Patrice read the certified record aloud. I listened from the couch with a pillow beneath my knees.
"If the prior marriage remained valid, the legal status of your later ceremony needs a court determination," she said. "We won't assume all the consequences from one document."
"I spent six years calling him my husband."
"I know."
"Was any of it real?"
Patrice took off her glasses.
"Your life was real. Your work was real. Your love was real. His deception doesn't erase what you lived."
I looked toward the little pile of baby clothes Lorraine had washed.
My daughter was real, too.
We had chosen Joy as her name, but I had not told Darius. I wanted one thing that belonged to her before it belonged to his public story.
A court hearing addressed temporary protection and disputed property access. Darius's attorney argued that he needed contact to discuss family matters. My attorney presented the existing evidence and requested safeguards. The judge made temporary orders while the criminal and civil proceedings continued.
I did not leave the courthouse feeling victorious.
I left exhausted.
In the parking garage, my mother wrapped a scarf around my neck.
"You're shaking."
"I'm cold."
"You're scared."
"Both."
She opened the car door.
"Then we go home."
Home was the apartment now. It smelled of cinnamon because Lorraine had baked rolls. The television played an old Christmas movie. For an hour, we pretended the world was ordinary.
Then Elijah called.
He had found photographs of the mansion nursery taken by an interior designer. Darius had commissioned a second name plaque without telling me.
MICAH & JOY.
I stared at the image.
"He knew her name?"
I had mentioned Joy once in a conversation with Tasha. I thought she had forgotten.
The nursery had two cribs, two dressers, and matching quilts. Darius had been planning to move Micah into my house after I disappeared. He had planned to put my daughter there too—if she survived, and if he could control what happened next.
The thought made me physically sick.
"Why would he want both children?" Lorraine asked.
Patrice examined the financial records.
"The trust documents may give an independent fiduciary control of Joy's interests. He may have believed physical custody would give him leverage, but that's not the same as legal control."
I looked at the photographs again.
Tasha had helped choose every color.
My best friend had designed a room for my child while helping prepare a place for her own.
That evening, Detective Reed called. Investigators had obtained additional footage from the helicopter operator. It showed Darius arguing with Andre before takeoff. It also showed Tasha delivering an envelope to a dispatcher.
"What was in it?" I asked.
"Still being examined."
"Did she know what he was going to do?"
"We're investigating."
I was tired of waiting for answers. I was also learning that anger couldn't replace evidence.
The following morning, Tasha came to Patrice's office with counsel. She gave a recorded statement to investigators and acknowledged knowing Darius had planned to harm me. She claimed she had tried to stop him, then helped conceal the scheme after he threatened to take Micah.
I asked Patrice one question.
"Did she warn anybody before the flight?"
"No."
I closed my eyes.
Tasha had been frightened. She had also made choices that left me falling through the sky.
Both things could be true.
That night, my contractions began.
They were early.
Lorraine drove me to the hospital while Patrice called ahead. I gripped the door handle, terrified that everything I had survived would still end with losing Joy.
At the maternity entrance, I saw Darius standing beside a black SUV.
He had somehow learned where I was going.
He stepped toward us.
"Simone, I just want to see my baby."
My mother moved between him and the car.
"You don't get to make this night about you."
Hospital security came immediately. I was taken inside.
May you like
As the doors closed, Darius called after me.
"Ask your mother what she did to your father!"
