The driver kept the clipboard angled toward me for only a few seconds, but I did not need longer.
The authorization line said Hastings.
I looked from the name to the black town car, then back toward the McDonald’s where I had spent the last twenty minutes trying not to fall apart beneath fluorescent parking-lot lights.
“Mr.
Hastings is expecting you,” the driver said.
I climbed into the back seat with my ultrasound envelope on my lap and my law degree pressed against my suitcase.
For the first few miles, I said nothing.
My father had been fascinated by the Hastings family for as long as I could remember.
Their name appeared on buildings, charitable events, business stories, and invitations my parents treated like social currency even when they were not theirs.
Dad had driven past their estate often enough that I knew the iron gates before we reached them.
He had spent seventeen years talking about people like the Hastings family as though proximity to them proved something about your worth.
He had just thrown his daughter into the street without realizing she was carrying a Hastings grandchild.
The irony should have felt satisfying.
It did not.
I was still hearing my mother say, “Sleep on the streets.”
The town car passed through the gates and followed a long drive beneath old trees.
The mansion ahead was illuminated softly, not ostentatiously.
An American flag moved above the porch.
My phone started vibrating.
Three missed calls from my sister.
Two numbers I did not recognize.
Then a text from my sister appeared.
Mom and Dad are freaking out.
Someone saw you get into a Hastings car.
What is going on?
I stared at the message until the screen dimmed.
That was fast.
For people who had been worried about someone seeing me at their house, my parents apparently hated being excluded from other people’s observations.
The driver stopped near the front steps.
Before he could come around to open my door, the front door of the house opened.
Robert stepped outside.
I had met Michael’s father twice before, both times briefly and far away from Indiana.
He was tall, silver-haired, composed, and so naturally authoritative that people tended to lower their voices around him without being asked.
That night, he walked down the steps without a jacket and opened my car door himself.
“Laura.”
I tried to smile.
“Mr.
Hastings.”
“Robert.” His eyes dropped to the suitcase, then the degree folder, then the white medical envelope clutched against my stomach.
His jaw tightened.
“Michael told me enough.”
“I’m sorry to arrive like this.”
His expression changed immediately.
“You have nothing to apologize for.”
Those six words almost broke me more effectively than anything my parents had said.
Inside, a housekeeper brought tea and something to eat.
Nobody asked me to explain myself before offering me a chair.
Nobody asked whether the neighbors knew I was pregnant.
Robert sat across from me in a quiet library and waited until I had taken several bites of toast before speaking.
“Michael is driving in.
He wanted to come get you himself, but I told him I could reach you faster.”
I nodded.
“He said your parents didn’t know about him.”
“They knew I was seeing someone.
They didn’t know who.”
“Why?”
