Chapter 2 - The Mother Who Wasn’t There
By morning, I had learned three things.
Theo’s mother was named Mara.
Nobody at Harrington Manor spoke about her without lowering their voice.
And Alexander had never seen her body.
He told me that last part while sitting beside his son’s hospital bassinet, holding a paper cup he hadn’t drunk from.
“There was a hemorrhage after the delivery,” he said. “Harrison told me they were transferring her to a specialist facility.”
“Were you there?”
“I was in Boston. My flight was grounded. By the time I got back, they said she was gone.”
“They?”
“Harrison. My aunt Vivienne. The medical director at the private maternity center.”
A familiar uneasiness settled beneath my ribs.
“What about the funeral?”
“A closed casket.”
“Alexander.”
He looked up.
“I know how it sounds now.”
It sounded like a man accustomed to controlling everything had become helpless at exactly the wrong moment.
It also sounded like a story several people had needed him to believe.
I kept those thoughts to myself.
The impossible voice inside my head was enough trouble.
At noon, Theo’s physician asked Alexander to speak privately. When he returned, his face had lost its color.
“They found evidence of medication that wasn’t listed in his chart.”
I gripped the edge of my chair.
“Is he going to be okay?”
“They’re cautiously optimistic. They’re keeping him here while they determine what happened.”
“Have you called the police?”
“The hospital has.”
“And Harrison?”
“Not answering.”
Theo slept through all of it.
He looked ordinary in the clear bassinet. Small nose. Soft dark hair. A mouth that trembled before every yawn.
Nothing about him suggested that he had been holding conversations inside my skull.
I began testing the impossible quietly.
When I stood across the room, I heard nothing.
When I sat beside him, I caught fragments.
Warm.
Hungry.
A flash of discomfort that became words only after it reached me.
It wasn’t really speech, I realized.
My mind was turning something simpler into language.
Fear became a sentence. A remembered sound became a description. The sharp edge against his neck had become an angry demand.
That explained the words.
It didn’t explain why I could hear them.
My grandmother had once told me that some people were born with doors they didn’t know how to close.
I had assumed she meant empathy.
Now I wasn’t so sure.
Alexander noticed how often I approached the bassinet.
“Do you want to hold him?”
I hesitated.
“With the nurse here.”
He accepted that without protest.
The nurse helped settle Theo against my chest. His little body relaxed.
Then the memory came.
Not a picture exactly.
A sensation of warmth. A woman’s heartbeat. A soft melody with four descending notes.
I knew those notes.
I hummed them before I could stop myself.
Alexander’s paper cup slipped from his hand.
Coffee spread across the floor.
“Where did you hear that?”
I stopped singing.
“My grandmother used to sing it.”
“Mara wrote that melody.”
“Maybe they’re similar.”
“No.”
He crossed the room, then caught himself when I stiffened. He stopped several feet away.
“She made it up during the pregnancy. She recorded it on her phone because she wanted Theo to hear it before he was born.”
The nurse glanced between us.
I looked down at the baby.
His eyes remained closed.
Singing lady.
My chest tightened.
I wanted to tell Alexander everything.
I also remembered the cold metal against my head.
Trust couldn’t be built on one night of regret.
“I may have heard it playing somewhere in the house,” I said.
It was a poor explanation.
He knew it.
But he didn’t challenge me.
That evening, Vivienne Harrington arrived carrying white flowers and wearing a coat that probably cost more than my annual rent.
She embraced Alexander.
Then she looked at me.
“So this is the girl.”
Not nanny.
Not woman.
Girl.
“Ella Mitchell,” I said.
Her gaze moved to Theo.
“I’m told you discovered a problem with his clothing.”
“Among other things.”
Her smile remained perfect.
“How fortunate.”
Theo woke.
The moment Vivienne leaned over him, a wave of terror slammed into me.
I had to grip the chair.
The sweet smell. Don’t let the sweet smell take me.
Vivienne wore violet perfume.
She reached toward the bassinet.
I stood.
“He’s just settled.”
Her hand paused.
Alexander noticed.
“So he has,” he said. “Let him rest.”
Vivienne turned her smile toward her nephew.
“Of course.”
But when she looked back at me, there was nothing gentle in her eyes.
Later, while Alexander spoke with the doctor, I found a folded note inside my coat pocket.
No envelope.
May you like
No signature.
You can still leave this house alive.
