Chapter 3: What Charlotte Finally Heard
Two days later, Charlotte arrived carrying a small embroidered blanket with her. “I’ve been thinking Adeline should genuinely carry Miles’s own name somehow, worked into hers.” I stared at her. “We already chose her name together, Charlotte.” “She should genuinely have something from her father, though.” “She doesn’t need his name added onto hers, purely to actually be his daughter.” Charlotte’s eyes flicked quickly toward my stomach. “Miles told me he’d genuinely changed his mind about it.” “We already chose her name, Charlotte.” “No, he genuinely didn’t tell you that part.” “You weren’t actually part of every single conversation we ever had together.” “Neither were you, apparently,” she shot back. “He kept things from you too.”
That particular remark landed hard. But it didn’t actually make her right about any of it. “Miles and I chose Adeline’s name together, Charlotte.” “Bridget…” “Go home now.” She blinked, caught off guard. “What?” “You’ve questioned Miles’s own judgment. You’ve let other people question mine too. Now you’re actively trying to rewrite what he genuinely wanted for our own daughter.” “Go home, Charlotte.”
Her mouth trembled hard. “I just lost my own son.” “I know that.” “You genuinely don’t know what that actually feels like.” “No, I genuinely don’t.” I stepped closer to her. “And you genuinely don’t know what it feels like losing my own husband, while carrying the child he’ll genuinely never get the chance to actually meet.” She went quiet at that. “We can each hurt differently, without actually destroying each other in the process.” Charlotte finally left.
Adeline was born two weeks later, in a quiet, entirely uncomplicated delivery. When they placed her against my own chest, she tucked her tiny thumb into her fist immediately. Miles used to sleep exactly like that too. “Of course you sleep just like your dad did,” I whispered to her.
When Charlotte finally came to meet her, she asked quietly, “Can I hold her?” That particular question genuinely mattered. I handed Adeline over carefully. Charlotte looked down at her. “Hi there, sweetheart.” Adeline yawned widely. Charlotte smiled through fresh tears. “I knew your daddy, back when he didn’t even have teeth yet either.” For one brief minute, grief finally stopped actively fighting the two of us.
Then, a few weeks later, I overheard Charlotte talking quietly to Miles’s aunt inside my own living room. “Miles genuinely wasn’t himself, at the very end.” I stopped short in the kitchen doorway. “Bridget handled those particular decisions herself. He never would have genuinely chosen that, if he’d actually been thinking clearly at the time.” I walked straight into the room. Charlotte was holding Adeline at that moment. “Give her to me,” I said flatly. Her face changed instantly. “Bridget, I was only just—” “Give me my own daughter, Charlotte.” She handed Adeline back over. I settled her carefully against my own chest.
“You will genuinely never say that in front of her again.” “She’s only a baby right now.” “She won’t always genuinely be one, though.” Charlotte’s eyes filled with fresh tears. “You still have something of him left, at least.” “She’s a baby, Charlotte, not a replacement.” I stared hard at her. She looked over at Adeline instead. “You wake up each morning and see him inside her. What exactly do I get left with?” “Me,” I said simply.
Charlotte froze at that. “You had me this whole time,” I continued. Her face crumpled entirely. “I loved you too, Charlotte, genuinely.” She covered her own mouth with one hand. “You’ve spent weeks now, actively making me into the enemy, purely because that’s considerably easier than admitting Miles genuinely chose something you personally couldn’t stop from happening.”
She shook her head. “He wasn’t himself at the end.” “I loved you too, Charlotte.” “He genuinely knew you’d say exactly that to me.” I looked up sharply. “What?” I reached for my own laptop. “Miles left me something specific for this.”
Her face went pale instantly. “If he genuinely had something real to say, he should have said it while he was still alive.” “He did say it,” I told her simply. I pressed play. Miles’s own voice filled the room around us. “Donation was genuinely my own choice, entirely.” Charlotte closed her eyes tight. “Mom, if you’re actually hearing this recording, you’re probably furious with me right now. You loved me before absolutely anybody else ever did. But loving me doesn’t actually mean you get to decide which choices were genuinely mine to make.”
Nobody in the room spoke a single word. “Don’t make Bridget prove she genuinely loved me, by simply agreeing with you instead.” Charlotte covered her own mouth again. “And don’t ever put Adeline in the middle of any of this. She isn’t something I simply left behind for you. She’s Bridget’s daughter, and mine too, and she genuinely gets to become entirely herself, on her own terms.”
