Chapter 2
Lucinda was Stellan and Maribel’s mother.
Maribel was Stellan’s older sister by three years.
For most of their adult lives, Stellan had considered the women difficult in very different ways.
Lucinda controlled rooms.
Maribel adapted to whoever controlled them.
That dynamic became dangerous after Maribel’s marriage ended.
Maribel had wanted children for years. She went through multiple rounds of IVF, suffered one late pregnancy loss, then spent eighteen months in a domestic adoption process that ultimately ended when the expectant mother chose to parent.
None of that made Maribel cruel.
At first.
She withdrew.
Stopped attending baby showers.
Sold the nursery furniture she had purchased.
Refused to speak about children for almost a year.
Then Elowen became pregnant.
She and Maribel had never been close, but they had been cordial.
Maribel congratulated her.
Sent flowers.
Offered recommendations for maternity clothes.
Then Lucinda began making comments.
“Some women get everything without fighting for it.”
Or:
“Life has an ugly sense of fairness.”
Elowen initially assumed Lucinda was mourning what Maribel had endured.
Then, during the seventh month of pregnancy, Lucinda said:
“If circumstances were different, Maribel would make a magnificent mother to this child.”
Elowen stared at her.
“What circumstances?”
Lucinda smiled.
“I’m speaking hypothetically.”
Later that week, Maribel touched Elowen’s belly without asking and said:
“She kicks for me.”
Elowen stepped back.
Maribel laughed.
“Relax.”
Stellan heard about both incidents.
His response was one of the mistakes he would later have to own.
“They’re grieving what Maribel lost.”
Elowen answered:
“That doesn’t make our baby part of her grief.”
“I know.”
“Then say something.”
“I will.”
He spoke to Lucinda.
She dismissed everything as sensitivity.
He spoke to Maribel.
She cried.
Stellan backed off.
That became the pattern.
Elowen raised a concern.
Stellan confronted them softly.
One of them framed the confrontation as cruelty toward Maribel.
Stellan returned home saying:
“They understand.”
They never did.
After Ivy was born, Maribel’s interest intensified.
She appeared at the house with diapers they had not requested.
A bassinet.
A bottle sterilizer.
Then a complete nursery set.
Elowen said:
“We already have a nursery.”
Maribel answered:
“This is for my place.”
Stellan finally intervened.
“Why would Ivy need a nursery at your place?”
Maribel smiled.
“Grandma sleepovers.”
“At seven weeks?”
“Eventually.”
Stellan said no.
Maribel took the furniture home anyway.
Then came the first sentence Elowen could not dismiss.
Maribel held Ivy during a family dinner and whispered:
“You were supposed to come to me.”
Elowen heard.
She took Ivy back immediately.
Maribel denied saying it.
Lucinda told Elowen:
“You’re exhausted. Be careful what you imagine.”
May you like
Now, sitting with police while an adoption form bearing her forged signature rested inside an evidence sleeve, Elowen understood something that made her colder than the slap had.
Lucinda had spent weeks preparing the argument that Elowen’s perceptions could not be trusted.
