CHAPTER TWO — THE EMPTY NURSERY

Jonah worked for a local shop that restored antique mechanical signs and repaired the moving displays used in old theaters.
His work was patient, physical, and usually silent.
He had a hundred brass letters to polish that morning, but he kept looking at his phone.
At nine, he called the unknown number from outside the workshop.
A woman answered after one ring.
“My name is Priya Sethi,” she said.
“Are you with Nestwell?”
“I was their regional installation coordinator until yesterday.”
“Why are you texting me?”
“Because someone told me your wife had access to the family-room acceptance reports.”
“I don’t discuss my wife’s work.”
“Neither do I, normally.”
Priya lowered her voice.
“I’m trying to reach her, and every corporate number I have goes straight to Dorian’s assistant.”


“Then email her.”
“She has stopped opening my messages.”
Jonah looked at the rain sliding down the shop window.
“What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to tell her not to sign anything presented as an end-of-project acknowledgment.”
“Why?”
“Because three rooms on the company’s completion list are empty spaces.”
Jonah rubbed his forehead.
“Are you saying they weren’t built?”
“I’m saying the companies paying for them have been told they’re ready for use.”
A delivery van passed, drowning out Priya’s next words.
When the noise cleared, she sounded close to tears.
“People are planning their return to work around those rooms.”
Jonah glanced at the wall clock.
“Have you contacted the companies directly?”
“I have an appointment with one of them this afternoon.”
“Then you should use that appointment.”


“Jonah, Dorian is going to say Belinda approved the sites.”
He straightened.
“Did she?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then I can’t help you invent an answer.”
“I don’t need you to.”
Priya inhaled audibly.
“I need one person close to her to tell her that silence won’t make this go away.”
The call ended before Jonah could reply.
He stood outside the shop for another minute, listening to the little bell over the door ring as customers entered.
A marriage was not a business partnership.
He had no right to act as Belinda’s agent.
Yet a stranger had just described something that sounded like a danger to ordinary people rather than a dispute between executives.
Jonah sent Belinda a short text.
Priya Sethi called me about Nestwell site reports.
I told her I won’t speak for you.
If the reports are wrong, please talk to the affected employers yourself.
Belinda called immediately.
“Who gave her your number?”
“I didn’t ask.”
“She’s trying to destroy my career.”
“She said three rooms aren’t finished.”
“They’re in a commissioning phase.”
“She says they’re marked complete.”
“Dorian has everything under control.”
“That phrase didn’t answer what I said.”
“Stay out of my company.”
“I intend to.”
“Then stop repeating her allegations.”
“I sent you one message.”
“You don’t know what she’s capable of.”
“Neither do I.”
Belinda went quiet.
When she spoke again, her voice was thinner.
“Don’t meet her.”
“I haven’t arranged to.”
“Promise me.”
“I’m not giving you a promise you haven’t explained.”
She disconnected.
At lunchtime, Jonah returned home to find a delivery box beside the front door.
It contained a small wooden cradle mobile he had ordered the previous month for his sister’s baby shower.
A delicate brass star hung at its center.
He carried the box into the spare bedroom, which had become a storage space over the last few years.
Belinda had once wanted children urgently.
Then she had wanted to wait until she became a director.
Then she had wanted them only when they could afford a larger home.
Jonah had said he could wait, but waiting had quietly changed from a temporary arrangement into a life.
He placed the unopened box on the floor and remembered the hidden vitamins.
His anger became mixed with grief so quickly that he could not separate them.
He had not known they might be expecting a child until he was already losing his wife.