I was in labor carrying a 10-pound baby – usnews

He hesitated.

My mother noticed. “Say it.”

Anil looked at me. “Leah said Sophie had access to someone’s old phone.”

I frowned. “Whose?”

“She didn’t know. She said Sophie bragged that people believe screenshots more than memories.”

The room seemed to tilt.

Screenshots.

Messages from my number.

Cameron’s fear.

The false story built piece by piece before I ever went into labor.

“This was planned,” I said.

The words barely made a sound.

Anil’s expression darkened. “It may have been.”

“But why?”

He reached into his coat pocket and removed a folded sheet of paper.

“Leah slid this under my office door after she called. She was too afraid to bring it herself.”

He handed it to me.

My fingers shook as I unfolded it.

It was a photocopy of a photograph.

Grainy. Slightly crooked.

A younger Sophie stood outside what looked like a courthouse, hair shorter, face softer, one arm linked through that of an older woman whose features tugged at something in my memory.

Not because I knew her.

Because I knew the man standing beside her.

Cameron.

Younger by perhaps six or seven years.

No wedding ring.

No white coat.