Chapter 1 - The Second Signature
At 2:17 in the morning, a nurse from Swedish Medical Center called and asked whether I was Sabrina Rollins.
“Yes.”
“Your husband is stable,” she said carefully. “But there’s another patient with him.”
I already knew who.
Six hours earlier, I had discovered photographs of Kenneth and my brother’s wife, Maya, entering the same Cherry Creek hotel on dates stretching back almost seven months.
I had done something stupid after that.
Angry, humiliated, and thinking only about making them suffer for one night, I tampered with a private item in Kenneth’s travel bag by replacing it with a powerful adhesive product.
I did not imagine an emergency room.
That did not make what I did acceptable.
When I reached the private hospital room, Maya was crying across Kenneth’s chest like I was the intruder.
I crossed the room, caught her arm, and pulled her away.
“If you wanted my husband that badly,” I said, “you should’ve stayed glued to him and died there.”
Maya stumbled against the bedrail.
Kenneth woke with a curse.
I threw my black folder onto his lap. Hotel receipts, restaurant charges, parking records, and photographs scattered over the blanket.
He looked at them once.
Then he grabbed my wrist.
“Shut your mouth, sign the papers, and remember—you’re still just the wife I bought.”
I ripped free.
Maya reached for the folder. I drove her hand away.
“He said you were too broken to give him a real family,” she snapped through tears, “so I took the life you couldn’t keep.”
The words landed exactly where she intended.
Kenneth and I had spent four years in fertility treatment.
Three failed transfers.
One miscarriage at eleven weeks.
Four frozen embryos remained at a clinic in Denver Tech Center.
Before I could answer, a nurse entered carrying a sealed belongings envelope.
“These were with Mr. Rollins when he arrived.”
Kenneth reached for it.
So did Maya.
I got there first.
Inside were his wallet, a key, folded bank statements—and a photocopied fertility form bearing my name.
AUTHORIZATION REGARDING CRYOPRESERVED EMBRYOS.
My signature appeared at the bottom.
I had never signed it.
A second page slipped onto the blanket.
Maya’s name was beside Kenneth’s.
Both of them lunged.
I picked it up first.
Maya had signed as witness to my supposed consent.
May you like
The affair was no longer the question.
Someone had been making decisions about my embryos in my name.
