Cora sucks her bottom lip between her teeth as she scratches at her wrist and spares me the smallest glance. She looks flustered as she replies, “Yes.”

I crack on the exhale. “Jesus. Are you okay?”

A shoulder shrug. That’s all she gives me.

“Cora…”

“My HCG levels were high enough to indicate a pregnancy had occurred. But there was nothing on the ultrasound, so they told me it was either a chemical pregnancy or I miscarried early—likely when Earl kicked me until he broke six of my ribs, then tossed me down a flight of stairs like I was a bag of trash.”

She keeps scratching her wrist.

“Fuck, Corabelle…” I run a palm over my face, reeling from the knowledge that our three weeks of hell created a life—as fleeting as it was. A thought pokes me and I add, “Do you know if it was… mine?”

I watch her cheeks burn as she stares off behind my shoulder, bobbing one knee up and down. “No. There’s no way to know,” she says, refusing to look me in the eyes. Refusing to acknowledge what that question implies. “It wasn’t viable.”

I look down at the cream-colored carpet, zoning in on a matching tuff of dog hair. “You should have told me when you found out.”

I feel her eyes on me again, but I don’t look up.

“Told you? When, Dean?” Her tone is strained—accusatory. “When you were shutting me out? When you decided to abandon me after everything we went through?”

“I just needed time, Cora.”

“How much time? I noticed the look on your face when you saw me standing in the kitchen tonight. You looked like you saw a ghost,” she says, heated and ready to break. “You didn’t want me to be here.”

“That’s not true…”

“It is true. You probably would have avoided me forever.”

I spare a quick glance over my shoulder to make sure no one is standing outside the door, then I take a step forward and whisper harshly, “I raped you.”

Cora presses her lips together, her eyes glossing over. “You did what you had to do to get us out of there. I told you to do it. That’s not rape.”

“You didn’t want it. That is rape,” I counter.

We avoid the elephant in the room: the fact that maybe we both wanted it that final day.

“I wanted to live,” Cora insists, taking her own step closer to me, her voice low. “I would have done almost anything to survive at that point.”

“Everything okay?”

We spin around, moving away from each other in the process, to find Bridget standing in the doorway, her hand against the frame as she leans into the room. I swallow, bowing my head.

Cora clears her throat. “We’re just catching up, Mom. Sorry I bailed… we’ll be out in a minute.”

I raise my chin, watching as Bridget gives us a tight-lipped smile and that ‘worried mother’ look before retreating back down the hallway.