Want to save this recipe?
The wheels of her suitcase echoed on the marble floor of the entrance hall as Vanessa quietly closed the front door behind her. Six in the morning. The apartment was bathed in the bluish light of Mediterranean dawns, highlighting the contours of the furniture like in a Hopper painting. She had taken the last high-speed train from Paris, then a taxi from Nice station. Carrying her heels in hand to avoid making noise, she tiptoed forward, already savoring the surprise she was about to give Eric.
Three days since she’d seen him. Three days of endless meetings in excessively air-conditioned rooms, of business dinners where she had to smile while fatigue burned her eyes. She had managed to wrap up her project a day early. Walking into their bedroom, she was already imagining herself slipping against the warm body of her still-sleeping husband.
The bedroom door was ajar. Vanessa gently pushed it open with her fingertips. The darkness was deeper here, with the partially closed shutters barely filtering the morning light. She first made out Eric’s silhouette, lying on his side, his back to her. Then a sound, faint but distinct. A small breath, like a tiny whistle. Something that didn’t belong to their daily life.
She moved closer, her eyes gradually adjusting to the darkness. And that’s when she saw it. A baby. Tiny, wrapped in a pale yellow blanket, nestled against Eric’s body, its small round face turned toward the ceiling.
The floor seemed to give way beneath her feet.
[featured]
The Suspended Hours
The day stretched like an elastic about to snap. Vanessa had taken refuge in the living room, after closing the bedroom door as silently as she had opened it. She hadn’t woken Eric. Not yet. Waking would bring a flood of questions she wasn’t ready to hear the answers to.
Sitting on the couch, her suitcase still untouched in the entryway, she stared at the bay window overlooking the Promenade des Anglais. In the distance, the sea sparkled under the rising sun, indifferent to the chaos reigning within her. Her phone vibrated several times – messages from colleagues congratulating her on signing the contract. She didn’t open them.
What was a baby doing in her bed? In their bed? Whose child was it? Questions swirled in her mind like panicked birds. The darkest scenarios took shape, then dissolved, replaced by even more painful ones. Had Eric been cheating on her for long? Did he have another family? Was this why he had always avoided the question of children with her, claiming they still had time?
Vanessa stood up, went to get a glass of water that she didn’t drink. Her fingers trembled slightly. She had waited for this moment when she could finally rest after weeks of hard work, and here she was facing a mystery that threatened to collapse her world.
A sharp cry rang out from the bedroom. The baby had awakened.
Truth in Another’s Eyes
“Vanessa? You’re already here?” Eric’s voice, still husky with sleep, carried a note of panic that didn’t escape his wife.
She stood in the doorway, arms crossed, as if to protect herself. “Who is this child, Eric?”
Her husband was sitting on the edge of the bed, awkwardly holding the crying baby against his shoulder. There was something touching and incongruous about the image – this usually confident man, a respected architect, completely helpless in the face of a tiny being demanding his attention.
“I can explain everything,” he said, clumsily rocking the child. “It’s not what you think.”
“What do I think, exactly?” The coldness in her voice surprised even herself.
“This is Leo. Mariah’s son.” He pronounced the name as if it should have meaning to her. “She needed help, urgently. She contacted me last night, completely desperate.”
“Who is Mariah, Eric?” The question was loaded with all the fears that had assailed her during those long hours of waiting.
He stood up, the baby still against him. “My sister.”
“You don’t have a sister.”
“I do. A biological sister I just discovered.” He placed a hand on the forehead of the baby, who had calmed down a bit. “She found me three weeks ago. She was adopted at birth. We did a DNA test. She’s really my sister, Vanessa.”
Family Reinvented
Night had fallen over Nice. On the apartment terrace, an opened bottle of wine and two glasses testified to the hours of conversation that had just elapsed. Inside, Mariah was cradling Leo in her arms, her slender silhouette outlined against the dim light of the living room. She strangely resembled Eric – the same green eyes, the same dimple on her chin when she smiled.
“I still can’t believe you didn’t tell me anything,” whispered Vanessa, turning to her husband. “Three weeks of talking to her, meeting her, without mentioning a word to me.”
“I was afraid you’d think she was a scammer, someone looking to take advantage of our situation.” Eric took her hand. “I wanted to be sure, to have the test results before telling you. And you were so caught up in your project…”
“And last night?”
“She called me in a panic. Her ex-partner had found her, he was violent, she had to flee with Leo. She had nowhere else to go.”
In the living room, Mariah had placed Leo in a makeshift bassinet. She approached the bay window, hesitant, as if afraid of interrupting an intimate moment.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I didn’t want to create problems between you.”
Vanessa studied the face of this woman who, in the space of a day, had gone from threatening stranger to sister-in-law. There was something in her manner of holding herself, slightly hunched, as if trying to occupy less space, that awakened an unexpected emotion in her – not jealousy or mistrust, but a form of protective tenderness.
“You can stay as long as necessary,” said Vanessa, surprised by her own words. “You and Leo.”
Echoes of Silence
Days passed, transforming strangeness into familiarity. Leo, at eight months old, became the gravitational center of the apartment. His babbling filled the once-silent rooms, his scent of talcum powder and milk permeated the fabrics.
Vanessa found herself coming home earlier from the office, eager to feel the warmth of the little body against hers. She who had always pushed away the idea of having a child, fearing it would hinder her career, discovered a facet of herself she had never suspected.
One night, unable to sleep, she got up and went to the guest room where Mariah and Leo were sleeping. The door was ajar. She approached the improvised crib quietly.
Leo was sleeping, his tiny fists clenched on either side of his head. In the dim light, Vanessa contemplated this peaceful face, these features still forming that already bore the imprint of this newly constituted family.
She reached out, her fingertips brushing the velvety cheek. The old wounds – that diagnosis which, years earlier, had told her she would probably never be able to carry a child – suddenly seemed less acute.
Sometimes, love slips through the cracks of destiny.