excuse cruelty.”
For the first time since he entered the room, I saw clearly where his anger was directed.
Not at me.
Not at the baby.
At himself.
And at his son.
Claire quietly checked the newborn’s blanket, perhaps to give herself something to do.
I kept reading.
The last page changed everything again.
Logan had written the letter three months earlier.
The same week I sent him the message asking whether he was alive.
He had apparently intended for me to bring the envelope to Mercy Creek without realizing what it contained.
He wrote that he could not face his father directly but believed the truth might come out if Joanna delivered there.
It was cowardly even in confession.
He had turned me into a messenger without my consent.
He had hidden his own family secret inside the papers of the woman he abandoned.
I felt something inside me harden.
Not hatred.
Clarity.
“He used me,” I said.
Dr.
Wright did not disagree.
“Yes.”
A knock sounded at the door.
Before anyone answered, it opened.
A hospital administrator stepped in, followed by a security officer.
“Dr.
Wright,” the administrator said carefully, “there’s a man downstairs demanding access to this room.”
I already knew.
“Logan,” I said.
The administrator looked at me.
“He says he is the baby’s father.”
My entire body tightened.
Seven months of silence, and now he had arrived in less than forty minutes.
Dr.
Wright stood.
“He does not enter unless Joanna gives permission.”
The administrator nodded.
Every face turned toward me.
My son made a small sound against my chest.
I looked down at him.
For months I had imagined seeing Logan again.
In some versions, I screamed.
In others, I begged for an explanation.
Sometimes I imagined him apologizing so perfectly that the pain somehow rearranged itself into a reason I could live with.
But reality was different.
I was tired.
My body hurt.
My child was less than two hours old.
And Logan had already controlled enough of my life from a distance.
“Let him in,” I said.
Dr.
Wright turned sharply.
“Joanna—”
“With security present.”
The officer nodded.
“And he does not touch my baby.”
Five minutes later, Logan entered the room.
He looked almost exactly as he had the morning he left.
Same dark coat.
Same careful hair.
Same expression he wore when he was trying to seem calmer than everyone else.
But his eyes gave him away.
They went first to his father.
Then to the letter.
Then to me.
Only after that did he look at his son.
His face collapsed for half a second.
I saw wonder.
Pain.
Maybe love.
Then fear covered all of it.
“Joanna,” he said.
I said nothing.
He took one step forward.
The security officer shifted between us.
Logan stopped.
“I can explain.”
I almost laughed.
“You had seven months.”
His jaw tightened.
“I know.”
“No.
You don’t.”
I pointed to the chair beside the wall.
“Sit down.”
He looked at his father as if expecting rescue.
Dr.
Wright said, “Do what she asked.”
Logan sat.
For the first time since I had known him, he looked small.
I placed the letter on the bed.
“You mailed this to me?”
“Yes.”
“Without telling me what it was?”
“I didn’t know how else to
