Chapter 2 - The Sound of His Excuses
For forty-eight hours, Daniel Mercer did not exist.
My world shrank to the rhythmic, rhythmic beep of the NICU monitors, the sterile smell of antiseptic wipes, and the tiny, translucent hand of my daughter curling around my pinky finger through the porthole of her glass incubator. Every hour was an eternity of prayers and quiet terror. Annie was so small her diaper swallowed her entire torso, but whenever I sang the lullaby my grandmother used to hum, the erratic line on her oxygen monitor smoothed into a steady rhythm. She knew my voice. She knew I was there.
Daniel’s first phone call came at 6:14 a.m. on Thursday—nearly fifty hours after Annie’s first breath.
My phone buzzed against the bedside tray in my hospital room. I didn't rush to grab it. I watched the screen light up with his name, the photo of him smiling in a tailored suit glowing against the dim morning light. I let it ring until the final second before swiping the green bar and placing it on speaker.
"Emma?!" Daniel's voice was loud, breathless, and laced with frantic confusion. "Emma, what the hell is going on? I just turned on my phone and had forty missed calls from Rachel! She sent me an email saying you were in the hospital? Why wasn't I notified through the concierge?!"
I leaned back against the stiff hospital pillows, my voice dangerously calm. "Where were you, Daniel?"
"I was in meetings, Emma! We were closing an eight-figure contract with the European development board! It was a secure facility—no cellular devices allowed inside the conference rooms! Why are you in the hospital? Did you have Braxton Hicks? Are you okay?"
He didn't know. He hadn't even read the full messages. He had skimmed the notifications, saw the chaos, and immediately called to establish his defense before finding out the damage.
"Annie was born on Tuesday morning, Daniel," I said, each syllable dropping like cold stone. "At 9:41 a.m. She came eight weeks early."
The line went utterly dead. The background noise of Paris—car horns, distant chatter—seemed to freeze.
"What?" Daniel’s voice cracked, dropping to a terrified whisper. "No... no, Emma, that's impossible. Your due date isn't until October. You're thirty-two weeks."
"She’s in the neonatal intensive care unit," I continued, feeling no anger, only an eerie, liberating numbness. "She weighed three pounds. Her lungs collapsed twice on Tuesday afternoon. She was hooked to a ventilator while you were closing your eight-figure contract."
"Oh, God... Emma, listen to me," he stammered, his words stumbling over one another. "I'm booking the first flight out of Charles de Gaulle right now. I'll be there by tonight! I swear, if I had known, I would have dropped everything! You know I love you! You know I want our family!"
"Did the secure facility serve vintage champagne, Daniel?"
Another suffocating pause. I heard a muffled gasp on the line, followed by the faint rustle of clothing.
"What are you talking about?" he asked defensively, his tone instantly shifting from remorse to irritation. "Who have you been talking to?"
"Julian," I replied. "Olivia's brother. He told Rachel all about your private sunrise tour through the vineyards on Tuesday morning. He mentioned how you personally put your phone in the hotel safe so the American office wouldn't interrupt your romantic morning before the evening dinners."
"It wasn't romantic!" Daniel shouted into the receiver, panic making his voice shrill. "Olivia was having a breakdown over her divorce, Emma! She’s an essential partner for this firm! If she walked away from the deal, we would have lost our entire European expansion! I was managing a business asset! I took her to the vineyard to calm her down so she could present the pitch! That's all it was! How can you make this about petty jealousy when our daughter is in an incubator?!"
There it was. The signature Daniel Mercer maneuver: flip the blame, weaponize my pain, and make me feel guilty for catching him in a web of betrayal. For four years, that tactic had worked. It had made me apologize for things I never did.
"Get on your flight, Daniel," I said quietly.
"I am, honey, I'm heading to the airport now—"
May you like
"Come see your daughter," I interrupted. "Because after this week, you won't be seeing much of either of us."
I ended the call before he could speak, switched off my phone, and turned my eyes back toward the door where my attorney was scheduled to arrive in fifteen minutes.
