Chapter 9 - No Easy Alliance
I apologized to Serena without asking her to forgive me. She listened beside June's incubator, her own son asleep against her chest. "You weren't wrong about the dinners," she said. Ethan had leaned on their history, called late, and let her believe our marriage was ending. She had enjoyed being needed, even after she sensed he was using her. That admission ended any easy alliance between us. Still, Serena withdrew permission for the center to use her birth story, photographs, or son's name. The hospital chain immediately paused its financing by that afternoon. Ethan blamed me, then her, then Caleb, as though responsibility could be passed like a chart. Serena agreed to testify in the state review, but she would not let me call her a friend. "We both accepted versions of him that made us feel chosen," she said. I looked at June's oxygen line and knew my version had cost more. When Ethan arrived for visiting hours, Serena stood between him and both bassinets. He did not ask her to move.
