Page 163 of The Wright Man

I ripped my eyes from the boy and looked up at my husband.

Stone. Cold. Silent.

"Gavin," I said, my voice barely a whisper. "How old is he?"

He didn't answer.

He didn't blink. Fucking coward.

But I already knew. Of course I knew.

Because I had counted every single day since I lost my daughter. I knew how old she would be. I knew what milestones we would've hit. I knew what songs she would've danced to, what words she might've said by now.

And this little boy was right there. Same age. Maybe a few months younger.

I swallowed hard. My ears rang. The hallway tilted.

I asked again.

"Gavin. How. Old. Is. He."

Jasmine—of course—was the one to speak. Face still. Smug. Unbothered.

"Twenty-one months."

That number hit like a freight train. My knees nearly buckled.

Twenty-one months.

That would've put his conception around when Gavin had disappeared for a "sales retreat" in Vegas. The one he took after we lost Maleeka. When he told me he needed time to "clear his head" while I was in the hospital with another breast infection.

I laughed. Not a real laugh. A cracked, bitter thing that felt like it shredded my vocal cords on the way out.

I looked at him.

And I remembered.

I remembered collapsing outside the car that night. The sharp crack of my knees hitting the pavement. The scream that tore from my lungs when I couldn't stand. The concrete tearing at my arms and hands as I crawled to the front door. Ringing the bell. Screaming for him.

I remembered him opening the door. The cold look on his face. The way he grabbed me by the arm—rough, almost angry—and stuffed me in the passenger seat like a drunk friend he didn't want to deal with.

I remembered him yelling at me the entire drive.

I remembered how small I felt as I bled out next to him. As I begged him to help me. As he rolled his eyes and said, "We'll be fine," like I wasn't bleeding out my soul.

I remembered every second of silence in that delivery room after she came out.

The cold.

The quiet.

The way her tiny hand felt in mine as I kissed her goodbye.

And while I was breaking, this man was off planting life in someone else. Like our daughter had been nothing more than a detour.

I had no words. No breath.

So I did the only thing I could. I ran.