Chapter 10 - Spring in the Westchester Hills
The first week of March brought the real thaw. The last stubborn patches of Westchester snow melted away beneath a warm, golden spring sun that coaxed green shoots of crocuses through the damp earth along the driveway.
I was sitting in the rocking chair by the bay window in the nursery, a soft fleece blanket across my knees and a book of poetry resting unread in my lap, when the first sharp, unmistakable contraction hit.
I didn't panic. I didn't check my phone. I didn't wonder where anyone was.
I calmly stood up, walked over to the mahogany bureau where my hospital bag had been packed and zipped for three weeks, and picked up my keys.
Before walking out the door, I paused by the mirror in the entryway. I wasn't wearing Italian heels or a burgundy velvet dress designed to impress bankers who didn't care if I survived the night. I wore comfortable cotton leggings, a soft grey cardigan, and a pair of worn-out sneakers. My hair was tied back in a simple braid.
My reflection looked back at me—not as a politician’s ornament, not as a betrayed wife, and not as a collateral casualty.
Just Elena.
I drove myself down the winding Westchester driveway, past the stone pillars of the estate, into the bright spring morning where the road stretched out wide, open, and completely under my own control.
When our daughter arrived four hours later at Mount Sinai Hospital—healthy, fierce, with a full head of dark hair and a cry that could have stopped a boardroom meeting dead in its tracks—the nurse handed her to me across the sterile white sheets.
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I held her close against my chest, feeling the steady, rhythmic beat of her heart against mine.
“Welcome to the world, little one,” I whispered, kissing the top of her warm head as the morning sunlight poured through the hospital window, illuminating a future that was entirely, beautifully our own. “We wrote this story ourselves.”
