The panic hit me instantly. I tried to sit up, a sharp pain radiating from my abdomen. “My babies,” I gasped, looking around the empty room.
“Shh. They’re right here.”
My mother stepped out of the shadows near the window. She was pushing a clear plastic double bassinet.
I fell back against the pillows, tears streaming down my face as she wheeled them closer.
There they were. Nicholas and Emma. Tiny. Red. Wrinkled. Breathtakingly perfect. They were asleep, wrapped in tight little hospital blankets, their chests rising and falling in steady, rhythmic unison.
I reached out, my trembling fingers brushing against Emma’s impossibly soft cheek. The entire world outside this room—the divorce, the betrayal, the lies—simply ceased to matter. They were the only truth left.
Two days later, I allowed David to visit the nursery window.
I stood holding Nicholas, my mother holding Emma, while David stood on the other side of the thick glass. He looked shattered. The arrogant man with the espresso in the clinic was dead. In his place was a hollowed-out shell, wearing a wrinkled shirt, staring at the family he had thrown away.
He placed his hand flat against the glass, tears streaming silently down his face, his lips moving as he whispered something I couldn’t hear.
I didn’t smile. I didn’t gloat. I simply looked at him, acknowledged his presence, and then turned my back, walking back to my room with my son in my arms.
read more in next page
