Chapter 7 - THE WOMAN WHO REPLACED ME
Brooke followed me into the hallway.
“Dr. Ellison.”
I kept walking.
“Mara, please.”
I stopped beside the nurses’ station.
Three years earlier, Brooke had been twenty-seven and working for Grant’s commercial real-estate firm. Their relationship began six months before he asked me for a divorce.
I had spent years imagining her as the woman who stole my husband while I was still grieving our son.
Standing beneath the hospital lights, she looked younger than I remembered.
Not happy.
Not victorious.
Terrified.
“Did Grant know this could happen to Maisie?” she asked.
“You need to ask him.”
“I did. He keeps saying the doctors are overreacting.”
“That’s what people say when facts threaten the life they built.”
Her eyes filled.
“I didn’t know about his uncle.”
“Neither did I.”
“You were married to him for eleven years.”
“Yes.”
Brooke glanced toward Maisie’s room.
“Grant said Liam’s death destroyed your marriage because you blamed everyone except yourself.”
The words struck exactly where Grant intended them to.
I turned fully toward her.
“I blamed myself every day.”
Brooke looked confused.
“He said you refused therapy. He said you became obsessed with proving someone missed something.”
“I went to therapy twice a week for two years.”
Her mouth opened slightly.
I understood then that Brooke had not been given Grant’s life.
She had been given the version that made him innocent.
“You should stay with your daughter,” I said.
She reached for my sleeve but stopped before touching me.
“You saved her tonight.”
“I treated a sick child.”
“You knew who she was.”
“Yes.”
“And you still saved her.”
I looked through the window at Maisie’s tiny body surrounded by wires.
“She isn’t responsible for what her father did.”
Brooke lowered her voice.
“Was Liam?”
I could not answer.
Behind us, the elevator doors opened.
Judith Mercer stepped into the cardiac unit wearing a cream wool coat and pearls.
She saw me and stopped.
Her expression did not show surprise.
It showed anger that I was still standing.
“What is she doing here?” Judith demanded.
Brooke straightened.
“She’s the doctor who saved Maisie.”
May you like
Judith’s eyes moved to her.
“No,” she said coldly. “She’s the woman who will use this baby to punish our family.”
