Chapter 16 - The Name We Never Gave
I agreed.
Neutral therapist’s office.
Dominic entered.
Older.
No tuxedo.
No arrogance.
He sat across.
“Thank you.”
“What do you want?”
“To ask if you named the baby.”
“No.”
He nodded.
“Okay.”
Then:
“Do you want to?”
I had never considered together.
“I don’t know.”
He said:
“I sometimes call them Rowan.”
I stared.
“Why?”
“The tree outside first apartment we rented.”
I remembered.
A rowan tree? In Nashville maybe possible. Fine.
We used to sit beneath it.
I looked down.
“Rowan.”
“Too sentimental?”
“No.”
Then we sat in silence.
No claim about gender.
Too early.
Rowan became private name.
Not legal.
Not replacement.
Then Dominic said:
“I’m sorry I asked if baby was mine.”
“I know.”
“I was ashamed of infertility.”
“I know.”
“I understand test doesn’t mean anything about conception.”
“Yes.”
Then:
“I don’t need proof.”
Good.
Then I said something I had never.
“I was going to take pregnancy test after gala.”
He started crying.
“You didn’t know?”
“No.”
He covered face.
“I thought maybe you hid.”
“Your mother thought that too.”
“I know.”
Then:
“I wish…”
I stopped.
Wishes endless.
He asked:
“Do you forgive me?”
I took time.
“Yes.”
His eyes lifted.
“But no relationship.”
“I know.”
“No friendship right now.”
“Yes.”
“No annual Rowan messages.”
He nodded.
“Understood.”
Then:
“I hope you have children if you want.”
I almost flinched.
He saw.
“Sorry.”
“No. It’s okay.”
Then I said:
“I hope you build family too if you want.”
He laughed bitterly.
“Doctor says no.”
“Biology is not only family.”
He stared.
I meant.
Infertility was not sentence to loneliness.
He had harmed me.
That did not mean he was forbidden future love or parenthood through other paths.
Then we left separately.
I felt lighter.
Not because wound healed.
Because it had a name.
Rowan.
Then another twist from Victoria.
From prison, she wrote Dominic letters.
He returned many.
One eventually came to me through her attorney.
I almost refused.
Sophia said:
“You can throw unopened.”
I opened.
Audrey,
I knew you might be pregnant.
I stopped breathing.
What?
She wrote:
The week before gala, I saw prenatal vitamins in your bathroom.
My heart pounded.
Then:
I asked Dominic. He said you always took supplements and he did not know.
She did not know pregnancy.
But she suspected.
Then:
I told myself you were trying to trap him.
My hands shook.
Then:
When I pushed you, I remembered vitamins only after you fell.
This did not prove intent to harm fetus.
But morally worse than pure ignorance.
She had seen possibility.
Still shoved.
Then:
I should have told prosecution earlier.
Why didn't?
Shame.
Could it affect case? Her conviction already final. Could have sentence implication, but she had denied knowledge; new admission may be relevant to parole. I forwarded to prosecutor through Sophia.
No private handling.
Authorities decided.
I did not demand new charges.
Then Victoria wrote final:
I am sorry I made your body a place where my anger landed.
That line.
I did not answer.
May you like
But I could no longer say she had zero suspicion.
Truth got more complicated even after verdict.
