Chapter 1

The dirt hit Maya' s small casket.

A dull thud.

Each handful felt like it landed on my own chest.

Friends murmured condolences.

"Jessica must be too heartbroken to come."

"She's probably at home, inconsolable."

I nodded, my throat too tight to speak.

Jessica, my wife.

Maya' s mother.

Not here.

I drove home alone.

The house was silent, cold.

Then I heard it.

Jessica' s voice, clear, from the study.

A video call.

"...so Blake just needed some support, Chloe. He' s back in Boston, you know, after Silicon Valley."

My steps faltered. Blake Harrison. Her college ex.

"It was just a date, a friendly thing. He was feeling down."

A date? Today?

My stomach twisted.

"Honestly, Chloe, Maya... her birth was an inconvenience from the start."

The words hit me, air stolen from my lungs.

"And that whole Vermont thing... it was for the best. Experimental treatment, I told Alex. But it was end-of-life care. Patient-directed."

Her voice was casual, almost bored.

"Blake doesn't even know I had a child. It' s better this way. Spared her suffering, you know? And spared me the awkward conversation."

Horror, cold and sharp, flooded me.

She had told me Maya passed unexpectedly during a medical transfer to a specialist facility in Vermont.

A place Jessica had insisted on, citing a new, promising, but aggressive treatment.

She said Maya had slipped away peacefully.

Patient-directed dying. Maya was seven.

Jessica had orchestrated her death.

To make things easier for a reunion with an ex-boyfriend.

My daughter.

My bright, loving Maya.

An inconvenience.

Eliminated.