Callie Rose was born

Callie Rose’s birth, announced at Mercy Community Hospital on 14 May, closes the novel by giving Persephone Hadley and the deceased Callum McGregor a daughter—and by carrying Callum’s family name into the next generation. The brief public notice records both the child’s arrival and Persephone’s decision that she will be known as Callie Rose McGregor.

The announcement

The novel presents the birth through a pair of formal notices rather than a narrated delivery scene. The first states that Persephone Hadley gave birth at midnight on 14 May at Mercy Community Hospital to a daughter, Callie Rose, and identifies Callum McGregor as deceased. The next notice adds that Persephone wishes her daughter to take her father’s name, McGregor.

That spare, public format supplies the essential facts without describing the birth itself. It also makes the child’s naming an explicit choice: although Callum is absent and dead, his surname is not allowed to disappear from his daughter’s identity.

The losses behind the birth

The announcement follows Callum’s execution by hanging. At the prison, Persephone sees him among those gathered to witness the execution of his father, Ryan Callum McGregor; later, Callum recalls that Ryan’s death in July has left something inside him dead. Callum himself is executed after the couple’s final reunion, and Persephone’s shouted declaration of love is cut off as the trapdoor opens.

The birth notice therefore places a new life directly beside the fact of Callum’s death. Its description of him as deceased is restrained and administrative, in sharp contrast with the emotional intensity of their final moments. The text does not state how Persephone reaches the decision to use his surname, but the notice makes that decision unmistakable.

Family name and ending

By choosing McGregor for Callie Rose, Persephone preserves a public connection between her daughter and Callum. The name does not undo his execution or restore the family life they could not share; instead, it gives their child a continuing link to him after his death.

As the novel’s closing narrative detail, the announcement shifts attention from the lovers’ separation to the child who survives them. Callie Rose’s birth ends the story not with the restoration of what was lost, but with a new generation bearing the name of the man who is gone.