My Husband Made Me Forget Our Dead Baby

The knock comes at 9:47 a.m., three minutes after Atticus's car pulls out of the parking garage.

I know the timing because I've been standing at the kitchen window with my coffee going cold in my hands, watching the street below like I've been doing every morning for the past two weeks. Watching for something I can't name. Waiting for proof of something I don't want to be true.

The deliveryman doesn't wait for a signature. By the time I reach the door, he's already halfway down the hall, and there's a plain brown box sitting on my doormat like an accusation.

No return address. No label except my name—Meredith Stone—written in black marker, the letters neat and deliberate.

I carry it inside. Set it on the kitchen counter. Stare at it for a full minute before my hands stop shaking enough to find the scissors.

The tape splits with a sound that's too loud in the silent apartment.

Inside, nestled in a bed of white tissue paper, is a baby doll.

Plastic. Pale. The kind with eyes that close when you lay it down.

Across its chest, spreading from the center outward like a bloom, is a stain. Dark. Rust-brown. Dried into the cheap fabric of its onesie in a way that makes my stomach lurch.

Blood.

Not real blood—it can't be real blood—but the simulation is good enough that my hands go numb and the scissors clatter onto the counter.

Beneath the doll, folded with care that feels obscene, is a sweater.

Pale yellow. Hand-knitted. The stitches slightly uneven in the way that comes from arthritic fingers working slowly, lovingly, through each row.

I know this sweater.

My mother made it.

She started it two months ago, sitting in her hospital bed with the yarn basket perched on her lap, her hands moving through the motions even when the tremor made it hard. She told me it was for the grandchild she was praying for. Told me she'd picked yellow because she didn't know yet if it would be a boy or a girl, and wasn't that the beauty of it? Not knowing, but hoping anyway.

I haven't told her I'm pregnant.

I haven't told anyone except Atticus.

The room tilts. I grip the edge of the counter, force air into my lungs, try to make the pieces fit into something that isn't this.

Someone went into my mother's hospital room. Someone took the sweater she made with her failing hands. Someone put it in a box with a blood-stained doll and sent it to me.

My phone is in my hand before I remember reaching for it.

She answers on the third ring, her voice soft and tired in the way it's been since the last surgery. "Meredith, sweetheart. Is everything all right?"

"Mom." My voice cracks. I swallow, try again. "Mom, the sweater. The yellow one you were making."

Silence.

Not the comfortable kind. The kind that stretches too long, that means she's choosing her words.

"What about it, honey?"

"Where is it?"

Another pause. Shorter. Sharper.

"Oh, I—I think one of the nurses must have misplaced it when they were tidying up. You know how it is here. Things get moved around." Her tone is light, but there's something underneath it. Something careful. "Don't worry about it, sweetheart. I'll make another one."

"Mom—"

"Really, Meredith. It's fine. You have enough on your mind."

She ends the call before I can push further.

I stand there with the phone pressed to my ear, listening to the dial tone, staring at the doll on my counter.

She's lying.

She never lies to me.

Which means someone got to her. Someone scared her enough that she won't tell me the truth.

My phone buzzes.

A text. From Londyn.

*Are you okay? I've been worried about you.*

I exhale. Londyn. My best friend. The only person who knows how bad things have gotten between Atticus and me. The only person I've told about the distance, the silences, the way he looks at his phone when he thinks I'm not watching.

I type back with trembling fingers.

*Someone sent me a package. A doll covered in blood. And my mom's sweater.*

The reply comes immediately.

*Jesus, Mer. That's not random. Someone's trying to scare you.*

*I know.*

*Listen to me. You need to go to the hospital. Adelaide has a maternity checkup today. I saw it on her Instagram story this morning. If Atticus is there—if he's with her—you need to see it for yourself.*

My breath stops.

Adelaide.

Adelaide Medina. Atticus's ex. The woman he swears is just a colleague now, just someone he works with on research projects, nothing more.

The woman whose name he says too carefully, like he's afraid of how it sounds in his mouth.

*What time?* I type.

*Now. Go now.*

I don't change out of my jeans and sweater. I don't fix my hair. I grab my keys and I go.

The hospital is a fifteen-minute drive that I make in nine.

I park in the garage, take the elevator to the third floor, follow the signs to the maternity wing. My heart is a fist in my chest, beating so hard I can feel it in my throat.

I round the corner into the waiting area and stop.

Atticus is standing outside a closed clinic door.

Tall. Still. His hands in his pockets, his shoulders tense in the way they get when he's thinking too hard about something he won't say out loud.

I step back. Press myself against the wall where he won't see me.

A voice drifts through the door—warm, familiar, unmistakably Adelaide's—saying something I can't make out.

A nurse walks past, glances at Atticus, smiles.

"Everything's looking great," she says brightly. "The baby's healthy. She's lucky to have you here."

Atticus nods. Says something too quiet for me to hear.

The nurse disappears down the hall.

I stand there, frozen, my pulse roaring in my ears.

The baby's healthy.

She's lucky to have you here.

I turn and walk back toward the elevator before my legs give out.