I had just given birth when my husband burst in – his mistress in one arm, his mother in the other. She sneered, “Your surrogacy job is done.” My husband laughed, “Do you really think I’ll stay with a poor woman like you forever?” He snatched the baby from my arms. My stitches burned, my world went white. They thought I was lonely.

The first thing my daughter heard after entering the world was her father saying she belonged to another woman.

The second was my scream when Adrian tore her from my arms.

I had delivered Lily forty minutes earlier. My legs were still numb, my hospital gown was damp against my back, and every movement pulled at the stitches below my waist. Adrian stood beside the bed in a navy suit, holding our crying newborn against his chest as if he had rescued her from me.

“She’s not yours,” he said.

I tried to sit up. Pain ripped through me so hard that the monitor beside the bed began chirping.

Celeste, my mother-in-law, pointed one manicured finger at the mattress. “Lie down, Claire. Your job is done.”

Vanessa stepped closer in a red dress that belonged at a cocktail lounge, not a maternity ward. She touched one corner of Lily’s swaddle.

“I’m her mother,” she said.

The nurse near the doorway, Erin Morales, stopped writing on her clipboard.

“Mr. Hale, return the infant to the patient.”

Adrian blocked my reach with his shoulder. “This is a private family matter.”

“No,” Erin said. “It became a hospital matter when you removed a newborn from a recovering patient.”

Celeste dropped a folder onto my blanket. Inside was a surrogacy agreement bearing my name, my signature and a Nevada notary seal. It claimed Vanessa and Adrian were Lily’s intended parents and that I had received two hundred thousand dollars.

The signature resembled mine.

The date did not.

I had spent that weekend in Boston, sitting beside my father in a hospital cafeteria after his heart surgery. Adrian knew because he had refused to come.

I stopped struggling.

He mistook that for defeat.

“The apartment lease is terminated,” he said. “Your cards are frozen. Security can take you wherever you plan to go after discharge.”

Celeste smiled. “No husband. No child. No money.”

I reached for the bedside phone.

Adrian slapped my wrist away. “Who are you calling?”

“My father.”

He laughed. During three years of marriage, I had told him only that my father and I had a complicated relationship.

He had never asked why.

I looked at Erin. “Call the emergency contact in my chart. Tell him Claire Whitmore needs him.”

Erin’s eyes moved from the chart to my face.

“Whitmore?” she asked.