My hand brushed against the thick, sealed envelope I had carried with me from Maine.

“Alexander,” I said, stopping him as he turned toward the elevator.

“We don’t have time, Emma,” he said.

“Look at me,” I said.

He turned, his eyes wide and dark with anxiety.

“There’s more,” I said.

“More?” he asked.

“Your mother didn’t just pay Marcus to watch me,” I said. “She stopped me from coming to you.”

“I know,” he said. “She told me you walked away.”

“No,” I said, unzipping the inner compartment of my bag. “She intercepted everything.”

I pulled out a stack of yellowed paper, held together by a thick black band.

“What is that?” he asked.

“Every letter I wrote to you while you were in the hospital,” I said. “Every medical report about the boys’ birth.”

He stared at the papers in my hand as if they were a weapon.

“I tried to send them to your private room,” I said. “I tried to bypass the main desk.”

“I never saw them,” he whispered.

“I know,” I said. “Because your mother’s courier signed for every single one.”