It had not been spoken loudly the first time. It had been breathed into her life like poison. Margaret Bennett, her mother-in-law, had leaned close in the hospital hallway under the white fluorescent lights of Riverside General, her pearl earrings catching the glare, and whispered it with a softness that made it worse.
“Some women just aren’t meant to be mothers.”
Claire had still been bleeding.
She had still been shaking from anesthesia.
She had still believed, in some shattered, animal place inside her, that if she could only get back to the delivery room, if she could only hear one cry again, someone would tell her there had been a mistake.
But no one told her that.
No one corrected Margaret.
