Chapter 11 Christina
CHRISTINA
The examination room smelled of antiseptic and latex gloves, which always made Christina think of flu shots and scraped knees. She sat on the crinkly paper covering the exam table, her legs dangling, while her mom perched on the plastic chair in the corner with her purse clutched in her lap.
Dr. Agos was running late. The ultrasound tech had already come and gone, leaving behind a strip of grainy photos that Christina kept touching, tracing the outline of Violet’s profile with her fingertip. Her daughter. Still surreal, even at eight months.
“You’re quiet today,” Tara said.
“Just thinking.” Christina set the photos on her belly, watching them rise and fall with her breath. “About names.”
“Have you decided?”
She had. She’d known for weeks, actually, but saying it out loud felt different. Bigger. Like once she spoke the words, they’d become real in a way they hadn’t been before.
“You already know Violet,” Christina said. “But for the rest. Violet Frida Singleton.”
Tara went still.
“Frida,” she repeated, her voice catching. “After—”
“After Aunt Frida, yeah.” She looked at her mother, at the tears already gathering in her eyes. “Is that okay? I know she was your aunt, not mine, and maybe it’s weird to name my baby after someone I only met once when I was little, but—”
“Christina.” Tara was out of the chair and crossing the small room, her sandals clicking on the linoleum. She took Christina’s hand and squeezed, her fingers warm and slightly trembling. “It’s perfect. It’s absolutely perfect.”
The tears spilled over then, tracking down her mom’s cheeks, and Christina felt her own eyes stinging in response. She’d expected her mom to be touched, but this—this raw emotion—caught her off guard.
“She would have loved it,” Tara managed, dabbing at her face with her free hand. “That her cottage, her legacy... that it led to this. To Violet.”
Christina nodded, her throat too tight for words.
Outside the examination room, she could hear the muffled sounds of the clinic—phones ringing, footsteps in the hallway, the distant cry of someone else’s baby.
But in here, it was just the two of them, suspended in a moment that felt important despite the fluorescent lights and the blood pressure cuff hanging on the wall.
“I’ve been thinking about it a lot,” Christina said finally. “About how names carry things. History. Meaning. And Violet will grow up hearing about how Great-Great-Aunt Frida left her cottage to a woman who needed a fresh start, and how that fresh start changed everything for all of us.”
Tara sat back in the chair. “When I inherited that cottage, I thought it was just a place to hide. Somewhere to lick my wounds after your father—” She stopped, shook her head. “After everything fell apart.”
“After Dad destroyed everything, you mean.” The words came out harder than Christina intended. “You can say it, Mom. He cheated. He lied. He threw away thirty-three years of marriage for a woman younger than me.”
“Christina...”
“No, I need to say this.” She shifted on the table, her belly making the movement awkward. Violet was pressing against her bladder, as usual, but this conversation had been building for months, and she wasn’t going to let discomfort derail it. “I need to apologize.”
Tara frowned. “For what?”
“For taking his side. For years.” Christina’s voice cracked, and she pressed on before she could lose her nerve.
“When you and Dad would fight, I always assumed you were being dramatic. When you said you felt invisible in your own marriage, I thought you were exaggerating. And when he left—” She had to stop, had to breathe through the shame burning in her chest. “When he left, part of me blamed you. For not being enough. For not keeping him happy.”
“Honey—”
“I was wrong.” The words tumbled out now, unstoppable. “I was so wrong, Mom. And I’m sorry. I’m so sorry it took me so long to see it. I’m sorry I didn’t believe you. I’m sorry I made you feel like you had to defend yourself to your own daughter.”
Tara was crying again, but she was also reaching for Christina, pulling her into an awkward hug that was half-hampered by the belly between them. The antiseptic smell faded, replaced by her mother’s familiar perfume—something floral and warm that Christina had known her whole life.
“I forgave you a long time ago,” Tara murmured against her hair. “You were his daughter. Of course, you wanted to believe the best of him.”
“But I should have believed you.”
“You believe me now. That’s what matters.
” Tara pulled back, cupping Christina’s face in her hands.
“Look at us. Look at where we are. A year ago, I couldn’t have imagined this—sitting in a doctor’s office in North Carolina, waiting to hear my granddaughter’s heartbeat, planning for a future I never expected to have. ”
Christina laughed. “A year ago, I was in Miami, working a job I hated, dating guys who didn’t care about anything real. I never imagined I’d be living in the mountains. Never imagined I’d be pregnant. And I definitely never imagined you and I would be...” She gestured between them. “Close again.”
“Aunt Frida’s cottage,” Tara said softly. “That’s where it all started. That one gift, that one act of generosity from a woman who barely knew me—it changed everything.”
“The ripples.” Christina had thought about this often, late at night when Violet was kicking and sleep wouldn’t come.
“One cottage, and suddenly you had a new life. And then Ally needed a change and came to help you, and she started her own business. And Ryan found us, and he has a family now. And I—” She touched her belly.
“Ryan and I came here for a new beginning, and I found something I didn’t know I was looking for. ”
The door opened, and Dr. Agos swept in with her white coat and her tablet and her efficient smile. “Sorry for the wait. Let’s take a look at how baby’s doing, shall we?”
Christina leaned back on the table, lifting her shirt so Dr. Agos could apply the cool gel to her belly. The room filled with the whoosh-whoosh-whoosh of the Doppler, and then there it was—Violet’s heartbeat, strong and steady and impossibly fast.
“Perfect,” Dr. Agos said, reading the numbers on her tablet. “One hundred forty-two beats per minute. She’s right on track.”
Tara gripped Christina’s hand, and Christina gripped back. All that mattered was that sound, that evidence of life, that tiny heart beating away inside her.
“Violet Frida Singleton,” she said, testing the name aloud while the heartbeat filled the room. “What do you think, Mom? Does the name fit?”
Tara smiled through her tears. “It’s perfect.”
Dr. Agos looked up from her tablet, curious. “Beautiful name. Family name?”
“Frida is after my great-aunt,” Christina said.
The appointment continued—measurements, questions, a reminder about what to watch for as she entered the final weeks.
Christina scheduled her next visit with the front desk while Tara used the restroom, and then they walked out into the June sunshine together, blinking against the brightness after the dim clinic interior.
“Lunch?” Tara asked. “I’m craving something from Lettuce Eat. Maybe that chicken salad you like.”
“Only if you let me pay.” Christina dug in her purse for her keys. “You’ve been buying everything lately.”
“I’m your mother. I’m allowed to buy you lunch.”
“You’re also building an inn. Your budget is not infinite.”
Tara laughed, linking her arm through Christina’s as they walked toward the car. “Fine. You can buy this time. But I get to order dessert.”
“Deal.”
Christina unlocked the car, then paused with her hand on the door. “Mom? Can we stop at the baby store after lunch? I saw this mobile with little violets on it—purple and green, really pretty. I think it would look perfect in the nursery.”
“The one on Oak Street? I’ve been wanting to check that place out.” Tara pulled out her phone, already typing. “I’ll text Ally—see if she wants to meet us. She mentioned wanting to help pick out the crib bedding.”
“And maybe we can swing by the inn on the way home? I want to see the progress on the porch railings.”
They slid into the car, Tara still texting, Christina adjusting her seat to accommodate her belly. The parking lot was emptying out for lunch hour, the fresh mountain air coming through the cracked windows.
“Ally says she’s in,” Tara reported. “And Ryan wants to know if you’ll bring him a chocolate milkshake.”
Christina started the engine. “Tell him yes, but he owes me.”
Her phone buzzed as she backed out of the parking space—a notification from a tabloid app she kept meaning to delete. She caught a glimpse of the headline before the screen dimmed.
Castellano Heir Spotted at Manhattan Charity Gala with Mystery Brunette.
Her stomach tightened. She silenced the phone and dropped it in her purse.
“Everything okay?” Tara asked.
“Fine.” Christina pulled onto the main road, the clinic shrinking in her rearview mirror. “Just spam.”
Ahead, the mountains rose green and solid against the June sky. Lunch with her mom, shopping with her sister, a milkshake for her brother. A normal day in her strange new life.
Violet kicked twice, hard, right against her ribs.
“I know,” Christina murmured, one hand on her belly, the other on the wheel. “I know.”