Had i know

Veronica seemed careless. She had put the child in the cot with Eliana’s child and turned to smile at her sister. Eliana hated the smile. Now, though, it was all she wanted to see.

“Calm down, sister.” Veronica had said, pushing Eliana into a seat by the fire. She moved to the kitchen and began to prepare tea. Eliana remembered detesting how she moved around the house like it belonged to her.

“Why are you here?” she had asked once Veronica brought the tea to her. The answer was there; she should not have asked. But the question had already left her lips, and it hung in the air until Veronica plucked it.

“Like you do not already know. You know whose child that is.” Veronica responded, lowering herself into the recliner and looking into the fire.

Eliana would have loved to be in that recliner. She eyed her sister contemptuously. She would like everything that her sister had—her face, her body, her beauty, Andre’s love—but the child. She did not want the child.

What was she to