“Then don’t,” I said quietly.

Two words.

I had rehearsed a hundred speeches in my head over the months of my pregnancy, and in the end all I needed was those two.

Evelyn blinked.

That was not the reaction she had expected, and I watched the confusion of it move across her face.

She had expected tears.

She had expected begging.

She had perhaps even expected an apology from me, for the crime of having humiliated the family by giving birth to a child.