Chapter 3

First thing the next morning, my husband and I went to the city fertility and maternity clinic.

The doctor flipped through my test results and glanced up at me.

"Your age isn't in your favor. Natural conception isn't very likely. If you're really in a hurry, IVF is the only real option."

I sat in the chair and said nothing for a long time.

My husband let out a quiet sigh. "Let's think it over some more. Your body can't take much."

The words had barely left him when our daughter called.

Her voice was gentle in a way it rarely was. "Mom, Dad, come out for dinner tonight. Hilary and I got married."

A mouthful of blood seemed to lodge in my throat, and I couldn't get a word out.

I opened my phone. Elena's account had posted a new video.

The title was simple.

The Love of My Life.

In the photo she wore a cheap white dress, and Hilary Cobb wore a rented suit, the two of them standing outside the county clerk's office holding up their marriage certificate.

Elena leaned against his shoulder, smiling wider than the day she'd landed the civil-service fast-track position.

The caption was one line.

"After everything, it's still him I love."

The comments were all congratulations.

"You finally escaped, girl!"

"True love wins. No matter how rich your parents are, they can't stop you from running toward happiness."

"With looks like Hilary's, he really beats any of those safe office-job guys."

My husband was frowning at the screen beside me, waving a hand at me. "We're not going."

But she was still the daughter I'd raised with my own hands.

Even with my heart gone cold, I wanted to see just how far she'd take this.

"Send me the address."

Elena had booked a hot pot place.

The private room was small, a divided pot of red chili oil sitting on the table, the smell of chili and beef tallow shoving up my nose. My stomach turned over.

I only pressed a napkin to the corner of my mouth, and Elena's face had already darkened.

"Mom, what's that supposed to mean?"

She set her chopsticks down on the table.

"Hilary's my husband now. Can you not put on that face the second you walk in? Is it that he's poor, that this place isn't good enough for you, or that me marrying him is an embarrassment?"

Hilary Cobb sat beside her, hair slicked and shiny, some watch on his wrist you couldn't place the brand of.

He poured two cups of tea, smiling all politeness.

"Ma'am, don't be angry with Elena. She just cares too much what you two think."

I almost laughed out loud.

Coming from his mouth, that was really something.

The man who'd taken two hundred thousand and run was him.

And now he'd flipped himself into the one who'd been wronged most.

My husband didn't take his tea.

"Say what you came to say. Stop dancing around it."

Elena pouted, dragging it out for a long while, and finally spoke.

"You kept Hilary and me apart for three months. It hurt his shop's business. You owe him compensation."

My husband looked at her. "Compensation for what?"

"A car, obviously." Elena said it like it was the plainest thing in the world.

"A BMW's fine, doesn't have to be too pricey. It'd make it easier for Hilary to drive me around. And once I start at the office, you don't expect me to keep taking the subway, do you?"

I let out a cold laugh. "You two got married. Why on earth should we buy the car?"

"Because you're the ones who split us up first!"

Elena raised her voice.

"If you hadn't forced Hilary to leave, we'd have been married long ago. Why would it have dragged out this long? And besides, I'm your only daughter. If you're not leaving your money to me one day, who's left to leave it to?"

By the time she got there, there was even a trace of smugness on her face.

"Treat Hilary a little better now, and when I'm in a good mood later, I might take a little better care of you two in your old age."

"The company, the house, the savings. Give it early or give it late, isn't it all the same?"

The steam in the room made the air thick and hard to breathe.

My husband stared at her, his hands shaking badly.

He'd worked hard half his life, from a truck driver at the start to slowly building the company up, and in the worst of it he hadn't dared so much as get sick.

Elena had never once asked how any of that money had come to us.

She simply took it as hers by right.

The meal broke up on bad terms.

In the car, I looked at my husband, who'd gone gray in just these few days.

"Let's do the IVF. We can't throw away the rest of our lives for her."