Chapter 5
The baby spent six days in the neonatal unit.
Elise named her Anna.
Not after anyone.
That was deliberate.
Millicent had already suggested during pregnancy that a girl should receive a Hale family name.
Elise had agreed at the time just to end the conversation.
Now she wrote Anna Elise Hale on the birth paperwork.
Then stopped.
She stared at the form.
Jennifer, her attorney, was sitting nearby.
“You can take your time.”
Elise looked at the blank surname line.
She had not decided whether to leave Travis permanently.
She had barely slept.
Her abdomen hurt.
Her daughter was attached to monitors.
This was not the moment for symbolism.
She finally completed the paperwork using the legal marital surname arrangements already planned.
Then she put the pen down.
“I need facts before I make decisions because I’m angry.”
Jennifer nodded.
“That’s a good instinct.”
Augusto heard about that later.
He was proud of her.
He did not say so because he suspected she was tired of men grading her decisions.
The financial review began almost accidentally.
Elise tried to pay a hospital-related expense from her personal checking account.
Her online access failed.
The bank said the password had been changed two weeks earlier.
Travis had been handling household bills.
Elise called the bank with Jennifer present.
The account itself was intact.
But a new external transfer link had been added.
No money had moved through it yet.
The linked account belonged to a joint household account Elise rarely used.
“Who added this?” Jennifer asked.
The bank could not identify a person immediately.
It could identify the device session later through formal process.
Elise closed access and reset everything.
Then she checked the family credit card.
Travis had recently charged thousands of dollars in home-furnishing deposits.
Delivery address:
Millicent’s house.
Elise stared at the screen.
“What was she buying?”
Furniture.
A crib.
A bassinet.
A changing table.
A reclining chair.
Jennifer looked at her.
“Were you planning to stay there after the birth?”
“No.”
“Did Travis ever discuss it?”
Elise thought back.
“He said his mother wanted us there for a week or two so she could help.”
“Did you agree?”
“I said I’d think about it.”
The purchases had been made anyway.
Another decision transformed into a fact before Elise had made it.
The same pattern.
Her appointments.
Her phone.
Her rest schedule.
Now where she would live after childbirth.
Still, the evidence appeared to point toward Millicent.
Her house.
Her rules.
Her furniture.
Her obsession with controlling the pregnancy.
Travis remained the husband who always said he was caught in the middle.
Jennifer was less convinced.
“People who are caught in the middle usually try to get out of the middle.”
May you like
Elise looked at her.
“Travis keeps choosing it.”
