He Comforted Their Child While I Recovered Alone Chapter 05

He Comforted Their Child While I Recovered Alone Chapter 05

Grayson didn’t get home until the next morning.

He’d figured I’d be sitting in the living room the way I always did, waiting for him.

Maybe my eyes swollen from crying. Maybe demanding to know why he’d lied to me.

But as long as he held me, promised Piper and her son would never show up in front of me again, I’d end up

staying. That’s what he thought.

After all, for five years I’d needed his arm just to walk down and buy groceries.

Where else could I possibly go?

But when the door opened, the apartment was too quiet.

The flat shoes I always wore were gone from the entryway.

On the coffee table sat the signed divorce papers, my wedding ring on top of the last page.

Grayson stared at it for a few seconds, his face going dark.

“Adeline, are you done with this?”

No one answered.

He searched every room, and finally stopped in front of the closet.

Most of my clothes were still there.

He seemed to relax a little and pulled out his phone to text me.

[You’re not even taking your clothes?]

[Come back and we’ll talk. I can pretend yesterday never happened.]

Next to the message, there was only a single red exclamation mark.

Grayson’s hand finally went still.

He yanked open the nightstand drawer. My passport, my ID, my usual painkillers, all gone.

Just one expired blister pack left behind.

The back of it was covered in dates, scrawled in tiny handwriting.

Every single date was a day he’d promised to come with me to a follow-up appointment, and then bailed at

the last minute.

One time he’d said he had a board meeting.

Really, he’d been overseas for Beckett’s first birthday.

Another time he’d said his father was in the hospital.

The photo showed him building a snowman with Beckett at a ski resort.

He’d never once really looked at those dates before.

Because every time he came home, I’d smile and tell him the doctor said I was healing fine.

And he’d actually believed it.

His phone rang.

It wasn’t me.

It was my lawyer.

“Mr. Sinclair, Ms. Whitmore has given me full authority to handle the divorce.”

“She’s not willing to meet, and she doesn’t need you looking after her.”

Grayson pushed back instinctively. “What about her leg? She can’t be on her own.”

The lawyer went quiet for a moment.

“Mr. Sinclair, she boarded a flight alone yesterday, and she landed at her destination alone too. Her leg’s injured. That doesn’t mean she can’t live her own life.”

After the call ended, Grayson stood in the bedroom for a long time.

Beckett’s laughter drifted in from outside the door soon after.

Piper walked in with the boy, my parents behind her, followed by movers carrying luggage.

Mom said, cheerful, “Addie’s still upset. Let’s just have Piper and Beckett stay here for now. Once she comes back and sees the family getting along fine, she’ll come around.”

Piper carried Beckett toward the nursery.

“Beckett’s been dying to see the room Daddy set up for him.”

The second her hand touched the doorknob, Grayson slammed his palm against the door.

That room still had the crib I’d picked out myself.

Faded star stickers still clung to the wall.

In five years, he’d never once dared to go inside.

Piper blinked, startled.

“Addie’s already gone. It’s a waste to let the room just sit empty.”

The words landed with the same casual weight as when he’d said, yesterday, that a dead baby couldn’t hold

onto a name forever.

For the first time, Grayson actually heard how cruel that sentence was.

He slowly let go of the door, but he didn’t step aside.

“Get out.”

Piper’s face went pale.

“Grayson?”

“Take your bags. All of you, out.”

Beckett burst into tears, terrified.

In the past, the second that kid cried, Grayson would cave instantly.

This time, though, through the half-open door, all he could see was the layer of dust settled over the crib.

He suddenly remembered that after I lost the baby, I’d asked him if we could just lock that room up.

He’d said yes.

He’d held me and promised that as long as I was alive, we’d have another baby someday.

Later, I couldn’t have children at all.

And he’d given all of it away: the promise, the name, the title of father.