Chapter 2
Leah couldn't breathe.
The guest bedroom, a room that had been empty for years except when relatives visited during Thanksgiving, suddenly felt impossibly small.
Derek sat on the edge of the bed with his tie hanging loosely around his neck.
Naomi stood between his knees, laughing as she adjusted the collar of his expensive navy suit. Her lipstick was smudged. One of Derek's hands rested comfortably around her waist, as though it had belonged there for years.
Neither of them noticed Leah.
Not at first.
The overnight bag slipped from Leah's fingers and hit the hardwood floor with a dull thud.
Both heads turned at once.
The laughter vanished.
For several endless seconds, no one spoke.
Naomi was the first to move.
She stepped backward so quickly she nearly tripped over the edge of the rug.
"Leah..."
Her voice shook—not with guilt, but with fear of being caught.
Derek remained seated.
He didn't even rush to explain himself.
He simply rubbed a hand across his face and sighed, as if this confrontation had become inconvenient.
"It's not what you think."
Leah laughed.
The sound frightened even her.
It wasn't humor.
It was the sound of a heart breaking so completely that it no longer knew how to react.
"I just watched my husband sitting in bed with my sister."
She looked at Naomi.
"My sister."
Naomi opened her mouth.
"It... it just happened."
Leah stared at her in disbelief.
"It just happened?"
Naomi swallowed.
"We didn't plan this."
"No?"
Leah's voice rose.
"So the months of secret phone calls just happened?"
"The late-night grocery runs?"
"The business trips you somehow always knew about?"
"The weekends you offered to 'help me at the hospital' so Derek could 'get some rest'?"
Every memory suddenly rearranged itself.
Every missing puzzle piece slammed into place.
Derek finally stood.
"I was going to tell you."
"When?"
Leah snapped.
"After our daughter finishes chemotherapy?"
"After she dies?"
His jaw tightened.
"Don't say that."
"You don't get to tell me what I can say."
Silence filled the room.
Then Derek did something Leah would never forget.
He looked relieved.
Not ashamed.
Relieved.
"As terrible as this is..."
He spoke carefully, choosing each word.
"...I've been unhappy for a long time."
Leah blinked.
"You've been..."
She couldn't even finish the sentence.
"Our daughter is fighting cancer."
"My father is dead."
"I haven't slept more than three hours in weeks."
"And you're telling me you've been unhappy?"
He looked away.
"I didn't mean it like that."
"No."
She whispered.
"You meant it exactly like that."
Naomi burst into tears.
"I'm pregnant."
The room went completely silent.
Leah slowly turned toward her sister.
"What?"
Naomi rested a trembling hand against her stomach.
"I'm fourteen weeks."
Leah looked from Naomi...
...to Derek.
Neither denied it.
Neither had to.
The answer was written across both of their faces.
Derek finally spoke.
"It's mine."
Those two words hurt more than discovering the affair itself.
Leah leaned against the wall to keep herself standing.
Her younger sister.
Her husband.
A baby.
An entire second family had been growing while she sat beside hospital beds praying her own child would survive.
She wanted to scream.
Instead she asked one question.
"How long?"
Derek hesitated.
Naomi answered instead.
"Almost a year."
Almost a year.
Leah did the math automatically.
That meant the affair had started...
...just weeks before Skylar's diagnosis.
Before the first hospital visit.
Before the first chemotherapy treatment.
While Leah had been desperately trying to understand why her daughter bruised so easily...
...the two people she trusted most had already betrayed her.
She filed for divorce the following morning.
Not because she had stopped loving Derek overnight.
But because she realized she no longer knew the man she'd married.
Derek didn't argue.
He didn't apologize.
Instead, he asked for something strange.
"We don't have to involve lawyers yet."
Leah frowned.
"Why?"
"It'll just make everything more complicated."
She looked at him carefully.
"You've already made everything complicated."
He forced a smile.
"I'm trying to keep things civil."
At the time, Leah believed he wanted to avoid public embarrassment.
Months later, she would understand the real reason.
The divorce would require full financial disclosure.
Including Skylar's trust.
And Derek had already begun making plans for money that had never belonged to him.
The following weeks became a blur of chemotherapy sessions, legal paperwork, and sleepless nights.
Derek moved into a downtown apartment.
Naomi moved in with him less than two weeks later.
Neither even tried to hide the relationship anymore.
Friends chose sides.
Some apologized.
Others quietly disappeared.
Leah stopped caring.
Her world had shrunk to one hospital room.
One little girl.
One impossible promise.
"You are going to get better."
Every night she whispered those words before Skylar fell asleep.
Sometimes Skylar smiled.
Sometimes she simply squeezed Captain Bun tighter.
One evening, while rain tapped softly against the hospital windows, Skylar asked a question that nearly broke Leah.
"Mom?"
"Yes, sweetheart?"
"If I lose my hair again..."
Leah looked up from the coloring book they'd been working on together.
"...will Daddy still think I'm pretty?"
Leah felt tears sting her eyes.
She forced herself to smile.
"You know what I think?"
Skylar shrugged.
"I think you're the bravest little girl in the whole world."
Skylar smiled faintly.
"That wasn't my question."
Leah climbed onto the hospital bed beside her and wrapped an arm around her tiny shoulders.
"Anyone who can't see how beautiful you are..."
She kissed the top of Skylar's head.
"...doesn't deserve to be your family."
Skylar nodded slowly.
She didn't ask about Derek again.
Not that night.
Not ever again.
Three months later...
The infection came without warning.
Skylar developed a dangerously high fever after her latest chemotherapy treatment.
Within hours, she struggled to breathe.
Doctors rushed her into intensive care.
She was placed on a ventilator.
Leah never left her side.
On the third afternoon, the door to the oncology room quietly opened.
Derek walked in.
Naomi followed behind him.
Her pregnancy was now impossible to hide.
Leah assumed...
For one brief, hopeful moment...
May you like
...that they had finally come to see Skylar.
She had no idea they were there for something else entirely.
