Priscilla stood up suddenly from her corner.
“Carson, stop.”
He turned on her, sharp. “No, Mom. I’m not raising another man’s baby.”
I’m not raising another man’s baby.
I looked down at Iris, at her tiny fingers curled around mine, and I made a decision that nineteen hours of labor had apparently clarified for me.
“Fine,” I said.
Carson’s shoulders actually dropped with relief. He thought he’d won. He thought I’d fold, apologize, beg, submit to the test to prove my loyalty to the great Rutherford line.
Instead, I picked up my phone off the bedside table, and I called my attorney, Lauren Miller — a woman who had drawn up every contract for my business, who was sharp as a blade and owed me nothing but the truth.
“Lauren,” I said, when she answered. “It’s Harper. Prepare the divorce papers.”
Carson’s face went white.
But it was Priscilla’s face that changed in a way I will never forget. She went paler than the hospital sheets, and her hands began to shake around that coffee cup, and she whispered, to no one, to herself, to God:
