Chapter 873

"Thank you, Emily." Evelyn Carter accepted the thermal cup, steam curling against her pale face.

Emily Zade gently patted her hand. "Don't overthink things. Your health comes first now."

Evelyn gazed at the trees blurring past the car window, her fingers absently tracing the cup's edge. "I know what I should do. But I can't help it. I've studied all the prenatal theories, yet when it's happening to me..."

Her voice trailed off as if choked by an invisible force.

"That's perfectly normal." Emily shook her head with a knowing smile. "When I was pregnant, I once woke my husband at 3 AM demanding to smell the hedges. Poor man nearly had a heart attack."

Evelyn's medical training kicked in automatically. "That's caused by hormonal changes heightening olfactory sensitivity. I had a patient who craved chalk dust during her second..."

Mid-sentence, she remembered this wasn't her clinic. The cemetery's outline had come into view.

"What happened then?" she asked softly. "How did your husband handle it?"

Emily's eyes softened. "He transplanted every hedge plant into our balcony. The holly he planted still grows there."

The car rolled to a stop at the cemetery gates. Alexander Hamilton stood waiting under a black umbrella, his dress shirt soaked through with sweat.

"He's been here awhile," Emily remarked meaningfully.

Stepping into the sweltering heat with white roses in her arms, Evelyn felt the umbrella immediately tilt over her. Alexander took the bouquet with his free hand.

"Bianca left something for you." His voice was deeper than usual.

Pine trees stretched wildly toward the sky, their verdant branches piercing the summer haze. "People always say green symbolizes life," Evelyn murmured, staring at the aggressive foliage.

Alexander silently handed her a waterproof envelope.

The laminated suicide note's edges were worn, as if handled repeatedly. Bianca Langley's handwriting pressed fiercely into the paper:

"Evelyn, if you're reading this, I've succeeded. Vincent Croix must die—this is the only way to ensure he disappears forever."

Evelyn's finger lingered over the word "Baby." The indented letters seemed carved with the writer's entire strength.

"...Let her never know she had a mother like me.

...

My parents will receive postcards 'from Europe' until their last days.

...

If my body isn't found, the digital version will send when she turns eighteen."

A tear splashed onto the laminate, fracturing into tiny droplets.

"She planned everything," Evelyn whispered like a sigh. "Not absence of love—but too much of it."

Alexander studied the endless rows of headstones. "She chose the safest path for her child."

Wind rustled through the pines. Pressing the letter to her chest—where new life grew—Evelyn looked toward the horizon.

"Vincent will never know," she said, "how happy his daughter will be."