“Our marriage was failing because he disappeared every time life got difficult,” I said.
Marcus looked at me then, and for once he did not defend himself.
Patricia continued, “I opened the envelope. I saw the ultrasound. I saw… I saw more than one heartbeat mentioned. I didn’t read carefully. I panicked.”
“You panicked,” I repeated.
“I called your old apartment,” she said. “You had already left. I told myself if it were real, you would come back. You would fight harder.”
The words landed quietly, but they struck something deep.
I thought of myself at twenty-five, swollen with four fragile lives, sleeping upright because breathing hurt, answering calls from creditors, building a business from a borrowed laptop while pretending I wasn’t terrified. I thought of hospital lights, tiny cries, incubators, my mother’s hands rubbing circles on my back before she died, and nights when I whispered to four cribs that I was sorry their father wasn’t there.
