Chapter 7: What Serena Carried
Serena didn't sleep.
She lay in the room Alaric had given her — a guest room on the second floor, quiet and warm — and she stared at the ceiling and thought about the envelope.
Not the one Alaric had pulled from his jacket.
The one she had recognized the moment he set it on the table.
The one she had been carrying a copy of for six weeks, folded inside the lining of her bag, waiting for a moment that never felt safe enough to use.
At two in the morning she got up, moved to the chair by the window, and sat with her hands resting on her belly.
A knock came at the door.
Soft.
Two taps.
"Come in," she said.
Faye opened the door and stood in the frame.
She was wearing a robe, her hair loose, her face scrubbed clean of the evening.
She looked younger without the event makeup.
She also looked exhausted in the way that goes past tired into something structural.
"I saw your light," Faye said.
"I couldn't sleep either."
Faye came in and sat on the edge of the bed.
She looked at Serena in the chair by the window.
Two pregnant women in a quiet room at two in the morning, in a house that had held too many secrets for too long.
"How far along are you?" Faye asked.
"Twenty-six weeks."
"I'm thirty-one." Faye looked down at her hands.
"I keep thinking about what she said.
Bianca.
About legally being what matters."
"She was trying to frighten you."
"It worked."
"It always works with her," Serena said.
"That's why she does it."
Faye looked up.
"How long have you known her?"
"Long enough." Serena shifted in the chair.
"She came to me three months ago.
Before Alaric found the results.
She offered me money to leave.
To take the baby and go somewhere quiet and never contact the family again."
Faye went still.
"What did you say?"
"I said no."
"And then?"
"She said the offer wouldn't be repeated." Serena looked out the window at the dark garden below.
"She was right.
It wasn't repeated.
She moved straight to trying to take the chair."
Faye was quiet for a moment.
"Did you tell Alaric?"
"He already knew.
He'd had someone watching her movements since the month before." Serena glanced back at Faye.
"He's been building this for a long time.
Tonight wasn't spontaneous.
He chose that gathering deliberately.
Every person in that room was chosen."
"Why?"
"Because in this family, witnesses matter.
If it happens privately, it can be denied.
If it happens in front of thirty people—" Serena paused.
"It becomes the story everyone already knows."
Faye absorbed that.
"He protected us by making it public."
"Yes."
"I wish he'd warned me."
"He was afraid you'd warn Bastian."
Faye opened her mouth.
Closed it.
She looked at the floor.
"Would I have?" she said, more to herself than to Serena.
"I don't know.
Maybe.
You loved him once."
"I did." Faye's voice was quiet and certain and sad.
"I really did.
And then I found out who he actually was, and I couldn't find my way back to the version I'd loved.
Because that version had never existed."
Serena said nothing.
She let the sentence breathe.
After a moment, Faye said, "What about you?
Bastian's child—"
"Is not Bastian's child," Serena said.
"The results are correct.
Alaric is the father."
Faye looked at her.
"We were together before he and Bianca separated formally," Serena said.
"I know how that sounds."
"I'm not judging you."
"Most people will."
"Most people aren't in this room at two in the morning." Faye looked at her steadily.
"Does Alaric know you're certain?
That there's no question?"
"He's always known." Serena looked down at her hands.
"He's the one who asked for the test.
Not to confirm his own doubt — to create a record that couldn't be challenged later.
By Bianca.
By Bastian.
By anyone."
Faye nodded slowly.
"He thinks of everything."
"He thinks of everything too late," Serena said.
"And then he thinks of everything."
A silence settled between them — not uncomfortable.
The kind of silence that forms between people who have stopped performing and started simply existing in the same space.
Faye stood up eventually.
She moved toward the door, then stopped.
"Serena."
"Yes."
"Whatever happens with Marco — with the baby — I want you to know I don't blame you for any of tonight."
Serena looked at her.
"You should probably save that until you know the whole story."
"Is there more?"
Serena looked at the window.
At the dark garden.
At the gate at the far end of the property, still and closed.
"There's always more," she said.
"With this family."
Faye stood in the doorway for a moment longer.
Then she said goodnight, and closed the door softly behind her.
Serena sat in the chair until the garden began to lighten at the edges.
Then she reached into her bag and took out the folded copy of the document she had been carrying for six weeks.
She set it on the windowsill.
May you like
She had not decided yet what to do with it.
But she had until morning.
