Chapter 2 - The Sound of a Phantom Cry
The silence that followed my demand stretched thin and sharp, like glass under tension. My mother’s jaw tightened, her hands unclasped and resting rigidly against her skirt.
"You are exhausted from the flight, Ethan," she said, her voice dropping into a register of practiced maternal concern that made my stomach turn. "You’re grieving, and your mind is leaping to wild, paranoid conclusions. A young woman died of complications during labor. It happens. The midwife left an hour ago, and the baby is upstairs sleeping in the nursery I set up for him."
Midwife?
The word hung in the air like a foul odor.
"A midwife?" I repeated, my voice dangerously calm. "Olivia had a high-risk pregnancy. Dr. Sterling at Northwestern Memorial Hospital was managing her care with a scheduled caesarean section three weeks from now. Since when do we deliver breech or high-risk babies in our living room with a midwife no one has ever heard of?"
Ryan swallowed his whiskey, forcing a nervous laugh that sounded forced and brittle. "Dr. Sterling’s clinic costs a fortune, bro. You were gone for eleven months. Women change doctors. She wanted a natural home birth. You know how stubborn Olivia could be."
I looked at Ryan, noting the micro-tremor in his left hand as he set his glass down on the mantelpiece. They were sweating through their lies. Eleven months of running a billion-dollar corporate restructuring in Singapore had sharpened my instincts for corporate deceit, but looking at my own flesh and blood trying to bury my wife without a death certificate triggered an entirely different kind of fury.
"Where is the birth certificate?" I asked, stepping closer to Ryan. "Where is the hospital transfer record? If she died of childbirth complications in this house, there must be a coroner’s report. Where is it?"
"The coroner is a friend of the family, he’ll sign off on Monday," my mother snapped, dropping the gentle act entirely as her patience wore thin. "Stop interrogating us like we’re criminals in a boardroom, Ethan! Your wife is dead. Your son is upstairs. Go upstairs and look at your child instead of tearing this house apart looking for ghosts!"
As if on cue, the infant’s cry drifted down from the second floor again. It wasn't the strong, healthy wail of a full-term newborn born under medical supervision; it sounded weak, distressed, and frantic.
Without another word, I turned my back on them and headed toward the grand staircase.
"Ethan, don't go up there!" my mother hissed, taking a sharp step forward.
I didn't stop. I took the stairs two at a time, my dress shoes thudding heavily against the hardwood steps. The memory card inside my wallet felt like a heavy stone against my ribs.
I reached the second-floor landing and pushed open the door to what was supposed to be the nursery.
The room was dark, heavy with the scent of lavender and stale baby formula. In the center of the room sat a bassinet. I rushed over and pulled back the blue knitted blanket.
Inside lay a tiny infant, his face flushed, breathing in short, rapid gasps. But what caught my breath wasn't just the baby—it was the medical equipment hooked up to a portable IV stand beside the bassinet. An automated saline drip and an oxygen monitor blinked quietly in the dim light.
This wasn't a natural home birth setup. This looked like a makeshift medical quarantine room.
And taped to the side of the bassinet was a yellow adhesive label from a downtown fertility and surrogacy clinic—a clinic I had never heard of, dated three weeks ago.
Surrogacy.
The pieces began to violently collide in my mind. Olivia hadn't been pregnant. Or... she had been carrying a child through a surrogate arrangement, or someone else had been brought into this house while I was away.
Footsteps rushed up the stairs behind me. My mother and Ryan burst into the nursery.
"Ethan, leave him alone," Ryan said, his tone turning hostile as he stepped between me and the bassinet. "He's your son. Take him and let's get this funeral over with."
I straightened up, looking from Ryan’s defensive posture to my mother’s calculating eyes.
"This isn't Olivia's child," I said quietly, the realization dawning with crystal clarity. "And Olivia didn't die giving birth."
My mother’s face drained of what little color remained. "You're insane."
"Am I?" I pulled my phone from my pocket, my thumb hovering over the screen. "Let's call the Chicago Police Department right now and let the coroner determine whether my wife died of natural childbirth or blunt-force trauma to the back of her head."
May you like
Ryan lunged forward.
It was a fatal mistake. In his panic, he confirmed every suspicion I harbored.
