With her hands resting on her great belly, she supervised the decorating of the nursery. Pale green walls and white lace curtains. A rocking horse imported from Paris, a crib handmade in Italy.
She tucked tiny clothes into the miniature wardrobe. Irish and Breton lace, French silks. All were mono-grammed with exquisite embroidery with the baby's initials. He would be James Reginald Conner.
She would have a son. Something at last of her own. Someone, at last, to love. They would travel together, she and her beautiful boy. She would show him the world. He would go to the best schools. He was her pride, her joy, and her heart. And if through that steamy summer, Reginald came to the house on South Main less and less, it was just as well.
He was only a man. What grew inside her was a son.
She would never be alone again.
When she felt the pangs of labor, she had no fear. Through the sweaty hours of pain, she held one thing in the front of her mind. Her James. Her son. Her child.
Her eyes blurred with exhaustion, and the heat, a living, breathing monster, was somehow worse than the pain.
She could see the doctor and the midwife exchange looks. Grim, frowning looks. But she was young, she was healthy, and she would do this thing.
There was no time; hour bled into hour with gaslight shooting flickering shadows around the room. She heard, through the waves of exhaustion, a thin cry.
"My son. " Tears slid down her cheeks. "My son. "
The midwife held her down, murmuring, murmuring, "Lie still now. Drink a bit. Rest now. "
She sipped to soothe her fiery throat, tasted laudanum. Before she could object, she was drifting off, deep down. Far away.
When she woke, the room was dim, the draperies pulled tight over the windows. When she stirred, the doctor rose from his chair, came close to lift her hand, to check her pulse.
"My son. My baby. I want to see my baby. "
"I'll send for some broth. You slept a long time. "
"My son. He'll be hungry. Have him brought to me. "
"Madam. " The doctor sat on the side of the bed. His eyes seemed very pale, very troubled. "I'm sorry. The child was stillborn. "
What clutched her heart was monstrous, vicious, rending her with burning talons of grief and fear.
"I heard him cry. This is a lie! Why are you saying such an awful thing to me?"
"She never cried. " Gently, he took her hands. "Your labor was long and difficult. You were delirious at the end of it. Madam, I'm sorry. You delivered a girl, stillborn. "
She wouldn't believe it. She screamed and raged and wept, and was sedated only to wake to scream and rage and weep again.
She hadn't wanted the child. And then she'd wanted nothing else.
Her grief was beyond name, beyond reason.
Grief drove her mad.
Chapter One
Southfield, Michigan
September 2001
She burned the cream sauce. Stella would always remember that small, irritating detail, as she would remember the roll and boom of thunder from the late-summer storm and the sound of her children squabbling in the living room.
She would remember the harsh smell, the sudden scream of the smoke alarms, and the way she'd mechanically taken the pan off the burner and dumped it in the sink.
She wasn't much of a cook, but she was - in general - a precise cook. For this welcome-home meal, she'd planned to prepare the chicken Alfredo, one of Kevin's favorites, from scratch and match it with a nice field greens salad and some fresh, crusty bread with pesto dipping sauce.