So I sat on an orange Naugahyde sofa and waited to be summoned. Even as the minutes ticked into hours, I had no doubts that Freya would want to see me. I was her best friend, even more than that. And she had no one else. No family. No Jamie. Just me. And Max, who was standing by her though he knew her baby couldn’t be his. The pair seemed locked in some kind of sick, codependent partnership full of lies and abuse and emotional distance, and yet . . . they had each other’s backs.

As if summoned by my thoughts, Max appeared in the entryway. He looked pale and worn; the toll of witnessing his wife give birth to another man’s child was etched on his face.

“Hey,” he said softly.

I stood. “Is Freya okay? Can I see her?”

“She’s fine. She had a baby girl.”

She had a baby girl. Not we.

“Come with me.”

I followed his hulking form down the buffed hallway feeling petite and girlish next to him. Max still elicited a little a thrill in me. Once the baby was out of the picture, he would fade into the background, or disappear completely. But for now, I didn’t mind having him around.

The number on the door was eighteen. Max pushed it open and held it for me to enter. Freya was propped up in a narrow hospital bed, her face fully made-up, her white-blond hair brushed to a sheen. She wore a pale pink robe . . . the robe I’d seen on her the night she’d attempted to stab Max with a fork. Other than some puffiness around the eyes, you would not have known she’d just been in labor, had just had a child cut out of her stomach.

She greeted me with a weary smile, and my heart filled up.

“I’m so glad you came.”

Freya wanted me here at this seminal moment. I was the most important person in her life.

I noticed the tiny bundle sleeping in a clear plastic bassinet next to Freya’s bed. The baby was tightly swaddled in a white blanket, a few blond curls peeping out of the pink cap on her head. I moved closer, taking in the full pink cheeks, the long lashes, the rosebud lips. She was beautiful, not shriveled and purple like Eckhart had been. I’d wished the child away so many times, but she was perfection. Just like Freya. I felt something like awe as I stared at her . . . awe and fear. Because Freya might fall in love with this pretty baby.

“Her name is Maggie. After Max’s mom.”