Chapter 5 Mom's Together

The estate revealed itself to Hannah in layers. What had first appeared as a simple refuge slowly unfolded into something more complex, a world unto itself, hidden from everything beyond its ivy-covered walls.

Her suite on the second floor was grander than any room she had ever occupied, and Hannah Balsam had grown up in mansions. The canopy bed stood centred against the far wall, draped in cream silk that pooled against a dark mahogany frame. A crystal chandelier caught the morning light and scattered tiny rainbows across the pale walls. The bathroom was lined in Italian marble dove grey with veins of silver and featured a freestanding copper tub beneath a skylight so she could bathe under the stars. A writing desk sat near the French doors that opened onto a private balcony, and it was there that Hannah spent her first mornings, wrapped in a cashmere throw, watching the mist lift from the rose garden below.

The garden was the heart of the estate. It stretched across nearly two acres, sectioned into intimate rooms by sculpted hedgerows and stone archways dripping with wisteria. A central marble fountain, with water trickling over the figure of a woman cradling an infant, served as the gathering point for the residents. Gravel pathways wound through beds of lavender, peonies, and climbing roses in every shade from blush to deep crimson. In the far corner stood a glass conservatory filled with orchids and ferns, warm even on the coldest mornings. It became Hannah's favourite retreat when the English drizzle made the outdoor paths impassable.

Her primary nurse, Sister Margaret, a sturdy Irish woman in her fifties with kind eyes and unshakable calm, arrived each morning at seven. She took Hannah's vitals, reviewed her nutrition, and answered every anxious question with patience.

"Your iron is a touch low," she said one morning, pulling a chair closer. "Nothing alarming. We'll adjust your supplements. How are you sleeping?"

"Badly," Hannah admitted. "I dream about the warehouse."

Sister Margaret nodded. "That's your mind processing what happened. It will ease. But if the nightmares worsen, we have a counsellor on staff. No shame in speaking to someone, love."

Hannah appreciated the absence of judgment. It was a quality she had rarely encountered in the world she came from, where appearances mattered more than truth.

She wasn't the only resident.

Hannah discovered this on her fourth morning, when she ventured to the garden and found three women seated around the fountain. They looked up as she approached — curious, cautious, assessing. She recognised the expression. It was the careful calculation of wealth and status that the privileged learned before they learned to walk.

The first to speak was Yuki Tanaka, Japanese, petite, with sharp cheekbones and ink-black hair cut in a severe bob. She sat cross-legged on the stone bench despite her swelling belly, a sketchbook balanced on her knee. Her family owned one of Tokyo's oldest shipping conglomerates, and she had been sent here after her father discovered she was pregnant by a musician he considered beneath their station.

"You're the new one," Yuki said. "Sit. The fountain makes a nice sound when you stop thinking about why you're here."

The second was Priya Kapoor, daughter of a Bollywood dynasty and a pharmaceutical empire. Tall, striking, with warm brown skin and a cascade of dark curls. Her laugh was the loudest thing in any room. She was six months along and wore her pregnancy with defiant pride. Her mother had placed her here, fearing the scandal of an unwed pregnancy.

"My mother calls it a retreat," Priya said, rolling her eyes. "This child is the best choice I have ever made. They can hide me all they want. I know who I am."

The third was Ashley Fontaine-Ashworth, Lee. British, blonde, quiet, unlike Priya, who was loud. Her family's wealth was old and aristocratic. She was five months pregnant and rarely spoke about the father, though she once let slip that his identity alone could cause a political scandal.

"Some of us are here by choice," Lee said, stirring her herbal tea. "Some of us were put here. The trick is figuring out which one you are."

The four fell into a routine with surprising ease, drawn together by the intimacy of shared circumstance. They were all wealthy, all pregnant, all unmarried in the eyes of the world — and all hidden. Friendship took root quickly in that fertile common ground.

Mornings began in the garden. Yuki sketched while the others talked. She drew Hannah once, without asking, a woman gazing out of a window, one hand on her belly, her expression caught between hope and sorrow. Hannah stared at it for a long time.

"Is that how I look?" she asked quietly.

"That's how you look when you think no one is watching."

Hannah kept the drawing on her writing desk. It was the most honest mirror she had ever encountered.

Afternoons were spent in the conservatory for prenatal exercises, guided by a gentle physiotherapist named Claire. The four women stretched and breathed together on yoga mats arranged in a circle. It was during these sessions that real conversations happened, the kind that exist only between women who have decided to trust each other.

Priya spoke about her fear that her child would inherit the expectations she had spent her life suffocating under. Lee confessed she sometimes wondered if she could be a good mother, given that her own had been largely absent. Yuki admitted she missed his music, the man she loved and had been separated from.

And Hannah, slowly, began to share fragments of her story. She told them about the marriage she never wanted, the husband she never met, the divorce that was supposed to set her free.

"Then I fell in love with him without knowing who he was," she said one afternoon, lying on her mat with her eyes closed. "And he fell in love with me without knowing who I was. Now I'm here, carrying his child, and he doesn't even know I exist anymore."

Silence. Then Priya reached over and took her hand.

"He knows," she said firmly. "A man who loved you the way you describe doesn't just forget. He's looking for you, Hannah."

Hannah wanted to believe her. Some days she did.

Evenings were the quietest hours. The four gathered in Hannah's suite, which had the best view of the sunset, sharing tea as the sky turned from gold to violet. They talked about their children, the lives they imagined, the mothers they hoped to become. They laughed about cravings, Priya's obsession with pickled mango, Bella's desperate need for chip shop vinegar, and Yuki's midnight raids on the kitchen for miso soup. They argued about baby names and nursery colours and whether it was possible to spoil a child with too much love.

In those evenings, Hannah felt something she hadn't experienced in months.

She felt safe.

Not the manufactured safety of Charmaine's promises or the conditional safety of her grandfather's wealth. This was the safety of being known and accepted without conditions. These women didn't care about the Balsam fortune or the Wright empire. They cared about Hannah.

Yuki was the first to voice what all of them were thinking.

"This place is beautiful," she said one evening, watching the last light fade. "But it's still a cage. Comfortable, with excellent food and prenatal vitamins. But a cage."

Bella nodded. "The question is what we intend to do about it."

Priya looked at Hannah. "What do you think?"

Hannah placed her hand on her belly, where the life inside her fluttered. The first kicks had started that week, tiny and insistent, like a second heartbeat she could feel with her fingertips.

"I think we deserve to choose our own lives," she said. "And our children deserve mothers who were brave enough to fight for that."

The four women looked at one another across the fading light. No promises were made. No plans were drawn. But something shifted between them, a silent agreement that transcended words.

They were not merely waiting anymore.

They were gathering strength.

Outside, the rose garden settled into darkness, the fountain murmuring its endless lullaby. The estate was quiet, peaceful, beautiful.

But beneath the surface, something was stirring—four women, four unborn children, and the collective fury of mothers who had been underestimated.

Charmaine had built a prison and filled it with allies she never anticipated.

The walls she had so carefully constructed were about to become her undoing.

Dear Readers,

Even in desolate places, one can find people who are facing similar incidents. These four young women are forever bonded by their unborn children. They will go their separate ways. Read to find out how Hannah and Ashley will be attached unusually.

Your Author.