A Question of Survival - Chapter 23

On February 20, Nicole gave birth to a healthy baby boy weighing just under eight pounds. Ari learned of the event a week later when he received in the mail an announcement of the birth of Ari Paul de Benoits. Enclosed was a picture of mother and child taken in the hospital. Nicole was looking proudly and protectively down at the small bundle in her arms.Along with the vital statistics was this note in a familiar hand: “He looks so much like you, Ari! And he’s such a good baby. You’d be proud of him. Would you like me to bring him over sometime? Lots of love, Niki.”Eyes blurring with tears, Ari read and reread the note, coming back again and again to those words, “He looks so much like you, Ari!” The woman he had passionately loved had given birth to his child—the baby he had wanted her to abort. Perhaps he had been wrong to insist upon that invasion. Yes, he’d made a tactical blunder. It had been a monumental folly that he’d come to profoundly regret.