Chapter 1: The Sentence That Split the Room
“Please, listen to me carefully. You have to give her up because…”
My mother’s words hung in the hospital room like smoke.
For a second, no one moved.
The machines beside my bed hummed softly. Afternoon light spilled through the blinds. Lily slept against my chest, wrapped in a pale pink blanket, her tiny mouth opening and closing as if she were dreaming of milk and warmth and nothing else.
I tightened my arms around her instinctively.
Not gently.
Protectively.
As if someone might reach down and try to take her from me that very second.
My husband, Daniel, stepped closer to my bedside, his face hardening with confusion.
“Mom,” I said, my voice shaking, “what are you talking about?”
She looked at Lily again.
Then she looked at me.
And in her expression, I saw something I had never seen before.
Not anger.
Not disgust.
Fear.
“She looks exactly like your father,” my mother whispered.
I blinked at her.
“What?”
My father had died when I was twelve.
At least, that was the story I had lived with for almost twenty years. A heart attack during a business trip. A closed casket. A funeral full of black coats, folded tissues, and quiet condolences from people who spoke in soft voices around me.
My mother sank into the chair beside the window and pressed one trembling hand over her mouth.
“I need to tell you the truth,” she said.
