Two weeks later, I could barely see my feet.

Maya kept one hand under my elbow as we crossed the lobby of the Lakeview Inn. She walked slowly, matching my pace, and didn't once complain about how long it took.

"You okay?" she asked.

"I'm fine. I just feel like a parade float."

She laughed. "A gorgeous parade float."

Eleanor had insisted on hosting the shower. When she called last week, she'd been almost warm. "Leave everything to me, sweetheart. You just show up." I'd taken that as a peace offering.

Lucas and I had picked the theme months ago, sitting on the living room floor with paint swatches and an ultrasound printout between us. Sage green. Little ivy leaves. A cake that said *Welcome Baby Ivy*. He'd pressed his palm flat over the grainy picture of her and said, "We're going to give her the warmest home, Em. I promise."

I still remembered how warm his hand had been.

Maya pushed open the double doors.

White roses.

They were everywhere. An arch of them framed the entrance, so thick the room smelled like a funeral parlor. Clusters of white balloons bobbed against the ceiling, each one printed with a gold letter.

*V.*

On an easel beside the door, where the welcome sign should have been, stood Victoria's portrait. The same one from the nursery.

Maya's grip tightened on my arm. "Emma."

I looked at the small table under the easel. A stack of guest cards. A silver pen. A framed copy of my ultrasound, the one from our twenty-week scan, propped next to a single white rose like a memorial offering.

"Where are Ivy's decorations?" I asked.

Nobody answered. A few guests near the gift table glanced over and then quickly found something else to look at.

A woman in a long white dress crossed the room toward me. For one awful second, with that dark hair and that walk, I thought she was Victoria.

Then she got closer, and I recognized Claire.

Victoria's younger sister took both my hands in hers. Her eyes were already wet.

"Emma, thank you," she said softly. "Thank you for doing this. For keeping my sister's meaning alive. You have no idea what it means to my family."

I pulled my hands back. "I never agreed to anything."

Her smile didn't move. She turned and nodded at someone near the kitchen doors.

A server wheeled out a three-tier cake, white fondant with sugar roses spilling down one side. Across the top tier, in gold script, it read:

*Welcome Little Victoria.*

The lights dimmed. A huge LED screen at the front of the room flickered on, and soft piano music started.

Victoria as a toddler in a pumpkin costume. Victoria at prom. Victoria in a cap and gown. Victoria on a sailboat, laughing into the wind. The photos faded one into the next while a few women dabbed at their eyes.

The last picture held longer than the others.

Lucas at maybe twenty-two, his arms wrapped around Victoria from behind, his chin on her shoulder. They were both grinning. He looked happier than I'd ever seen him.

Then that image faded, and a new one appeared.

My ultrasound. Our daughter's tiny profile, her fist curled near her face. The one Lucas had kept on the fridge. Underneath it, in white letters:

*Her light lives on.*

The room went quiet except for the piano.

"Where did you get that?" I said.

Claire tilted her head. "Lucas sent it to me."

I found him by the bar, a glass of something amber in his hand. "Lucas. Did you send her our ultrasound?"

He set the glass down. "She asked for something hopeful to end the video. I didn't think it was a big deal."

"That's our daughter's first picture."

"My sister never gets to have a baby," Claire said behind me, her voice breaking at just the right moment. "The least you can do is let her name live through yours."

I turned to the nearest staff member, a young guy holding the AV remote. "Turn it off. Please."

He hesitated, looking past me.

Fingers clamped around my upper arm. Eleanor stood at my side in pearls and navy silk, her grip strong enough to bunch the sleeve of my dress.

"Don't you dare," she said, low but not low enough. "Everyone in this room is grieving. Everyone except you, apparently. You're the only one selfish enough to fight over a name."

"This isn't Victoria's baby," I said. "She's mine."

"Yours?" Eleanor's eyes dropped to my stomach, and she pointed at it like it was something on a shelf. "You're carrying a Reed baby. That doesn't mean you get to make every decision. Your job is to bring that child into the world. Lucas decides what she's called."

Conversations around us stopped. Someone set down a fork.

I looked at Lucas. Just one sentence. That was all I needed from him. *Mom, that's enough.*

He walked over, and for a second I thought he would say it.

He stopped beside Claire instead. She'd started crying for real now, or close enough, and he pulled a napkin off a table and gently wiped her cheek with it.

He didn't look at me.

"Okay," he said, mostly to Claire. "It's okay." Then, finally, to me: "Let's just get a picture and move on. You, next to Victoria's portrait. It'll mean a lot to everyone. Show we're all one family."

A photographer I didn't recognize had already stepped forward, camera raised.

"You want me to pose with her," I said.

"For once, Emma, can you think about someone else's pain?"

Eleanor still had my sleeve. I pried her fingers off, one by one, and smoothed the wrinkled fabric.

"No," I said. "I won't."

I turned and walked toward the doors. Maya fell into step beside me without a word, her purse already on her shoulder.

We'd made it past the rose arch when I heard quick footsteps.

"Emma, wait."

Claire caught up, slightly out of breath, a large glossy card in her hand. She held it out to me with both hands, like a gift.

"I wanted you to see this before you go. It's a mockup for the family portrait. Once she's born, we can do the real shoot. I already talked to a photographer."

I took it because I wanted to know.

Lucas stood in the center of the design, a swaddled newborn in his arms. Beside him, on an easel, was Victoria's portrait. White roses framed the whole thing. Gold lettering across the bottom: *The Reed Family.*

There was a gap on Lucas's other side. A soft, blurred edge where someone had been cropped out.

I recognized the dress. It was the blue one I'd worn to his cousin's wedding. They'd used a real photo of us and cut me out of it.

"It looks better without anyone distracting from Victoria," Claire said, as if she were talking about a centerpiece.

Even in a picture of a future that didn't exist yet, there wasn't room for me.

I folded the card in half, slowly, so the crease was sharp. Then I opened my bag and slid it in beside my wallet.

Claire's smile slipped. "What are you doing?"

"Keeping it." I met her eyes. "That's my child in your picture. You don't get to erase her mother."

She opened her mouth. I didn't wait to hear it.

Outside, the air was cold and smelled like rain instead of roses. Maya walked me to the car and opened the passenger door.

"Talk to me," she said.

I lowered myself onto the seat and pulled the hospital folder from the side pocket of my bag. Pre-registration forms. Birth plan. Consent paperwork. Lucas's name was on almost every page.

"I need to redo all of this," I said. "Emergency contact. Birth partner. Medical decisions. All of it. He doesn't get to decide everything for me anymore."

Maya crouched beside the open door and squeezed my knee. "Then we'll do it tonight. I'll help you."

My phone buzzed.

*Lucas: I've told everyone her name is Victoria. I'm not changing it.*

Before I could type anything, another message came through. A photo.

A stack of tiny newborn clothes, laid out neatly on tissue paper. Onesies. A knit cap. A soft cotton blanket.

Every single piece was embroidered in delicate gold thread.

*Victoria Winter Reed.*

At thirty-nine weeks, Ivy decided she was done waiting.

Maya got me through the doors of St. Anne's at a little after eight, half carrying me, her car keys still hooked on one finger. By the time they had me in a gown and hooked to the monitor, the contractions were coming every four minutes. Each one bent me in half.

I gripped the bed rail and watched the line on the screen climb into a jagged peak, then sink again.

Then I called Lucas.

Voicemail.

I called again. And again. Six times, and every one of them rang out to his recorded voice telling me to leave a message.

I knew exactly where he was. Claire had been posting about it all week. *The Victoria Legacy Foundation Launch Gala. Tonight we honor her light.* Black tie. A string quartet. A slideshow, probably the same one.

"He'll pick up," Maya said, though she didn't sound like she believed it.

My phone finally buzzed on the tray table. I grabbed it so fast I almost knocked over the water cup.

*Lucas: Claire's really unstable tonight. I need to stay until she gets through her speech.*

I stared at the screen while another contraction built low in my back. When it eased, I hit call one more time. He answered on the seventh try, music and clinking glasses behind him.

"Lucas, our daughter is coming," I said. "Please come to the hospital."

"Em, I told you, tonight's not good." He lowered his voice like I was embarrassing him. "Claire needs me tonight. You have doctors. You'll be fine."

The line went dead.

I looked at the clock above the door. 9:17. The second hand jerked forward, steady and indifferent.

I'd sat alone in an exam room like this once before. Our twenty-eight-week appointment, the glucose test, the one where they'd checked her heart. He'd promised he'd be there. Then Victoria called, overwhelmed by boxes and a broken moving truck, and he'd texted me from her new apartment. *Sorry. She really needed help.*

I'd told myself then that it was a one-time thing.

A nurse with a gray braid came in to check my numbers. She glanced at the empty chair by the window.

"Is your husband on his way, honey?"

I shook my head. My hospital bracelet was soaked through with sweat, the plastic sticking to my wrist.

She didn't ask again. She just squeezed my shoulder and turned the monitor so I could see Ivy's heartbeat, fast and strong.

---

At 3:42 in the morning, after a C-section, I heard my daughter cry for the first time.

It was furious and thin and the most beautiful sound I'd ever heard. The nurse laid her on my chest, warm and slippery, a tiny striped cap already tugged over her head.

My hand shook as I touched her cheek. It was so soft I barely felt it.

She opened one fist and closed it around my finger. She held on hard, like she was checking that I was real and that I wasn't going anywhere.

"Hi," I whispered. I bent until my lips almost touched her ear. "Hi, Ivy. It's me. I've got you."

Maya was crying openly. She held up her phone. "Look up, Em. Just for a second."

I did. She took the picture, and later she showed it to me. Me, sweaty and wrecked and smiling. Ivy, red-faced and tucked under my chin. Nobody else in the frame.

There was no one else.

I watched Ivy until her grip loosened and her breathing went slow and even against my skin.

The door opened just after five.

Lucas stood there in his black suit, his tie loosened. A white rose was still pinned to his lapel, the petals going brown at the edges.

He didn't ask if I was okay. He didn't even look at the baby. His eyes went straight to the clipboard hanging at the foot of the bed.

"Her name is Ivy," I said.

"We'll discuss the name later." He was already lifting the folder off its hook. "Where's the paperwork?"

Maya stood up. "Seriously? You just got here."

He ignored her. He flipped through the pages until he found the birth registration worksheet, the draft the nurse had left for me to fill out once I'd slept. The box for the baby's name was still blank.

He pulled a black pen from his jacket and clicked it.

"Lucas," I said. "Don't."

He wrote without looking up. Then he hung the folder back on the rail, facing me, as if he wanted to make sure I saw it.

*Victoria Winter Reed.*

Winter. Victoria's last name. He hadn't just given our daughter her name. He'd given her all of her.

I leaned forward, wincing, and reached for the folder. He put his palm flat on the paper and held it down.

"This is my decision," he said.

"Your decision." My voice came out rough. "She's two hours old, Lucas. She's two hours old, and you want her carrying around the weight of how much you miss another woman?"

He looked at me for a long moment, and his face didn't soften at all.

"Why are you so jealous of a dead woman?" he said. "Victoria is gone. This is all I have left of her."

Across the room, in the clear plastic bassinet, the little name card the nurses had taped on was still blank. *Baby Girl.* Waiting.

Something in me went very quiet, the way a house goes quiet after the power cuts out.

Ivy shifted against my chest. I put my hand on her back.

"She's not all you have left of Victoria," I said. "She's all you have, period. And you haven't even looked at her."

He didn't answer that.

I pressed the call button. When the nurse with the braid came in, I didn't take my eyes off him.

"I need a new copy of the birth registration form. This one has an error."

"There's no error," Lucas said.

The nurse looked between us. "I can print another one."

"Please," I said.

He waited until she'd stepped out, then dragged a hand down his face. "Emma, you're the mother. Fine. But I'm her father. I have just as much right to name her as you do. More, honestly, after everything you've put my family through."

"Everything I've put your family through?"

He pulled out his phone, tapped twice, and turned the screen toward me.

Claire's page. Posted minutes ago.

A photo of Ivy, taken through the nursery glass, her face scrunched and pink. Beside it, stitched together in a soft white border, was Victoria's portrait. The caption underneath read: *Welcome to the world, Victoria Winter Reed. Her light lives on.* Three hundred likes. Comments full of hearts and crying faces.

I hadn't even known anyone had taken a picture of her.

My fingers closed around the phone so hard I left smudged prints across the screen.

"Delete it," I said. "Tell her to take it down. Right now."

"I'm not doing that."

"That's my daughter's face, Lucas. Next to a funeral photo."

He took the phone back and slid it into his pocket. When he spoke again, his voice was calm, almost reasonable, which was worse.

"If you refuse to name her Victoria, don't expect me to acknowledge her as my daughter."

For a second, I couldn't hear anything. Not the monitor. Not the hallway. Nothing.

"You would abandon your own child," I said slowly, "over a name?"

A soft knock. A woman in a navy cardigan stood in the doorway with a lanyard and a tablet, the hospital's birth registrar. She took one look at us and stopped where she was, waiting.

I pulled Ivy's pink-and-white swaddle tighter, drawing her closer against me.

Lucas didn't answer my question.

He lifted the old worksheet out of the folder, the one with *Victoria Winter Reed* in his handwriting, now creased down the middle where his palm had pressed it. He laid it on the tray table in front of me.

Then he took the pen and pushed it into my hand.

"Sign it, Emma. Or you can forget about having a husband."

I looked down at my daughter.

She was asleep on my chest, her tiny breaths warm through my gown, her fist still curled where my finger had been.

I set the pen back down on the table.