Then something happened that hurt more than all of it. I lost the baby. Our fifth child.
The grief was overwhelming. By that point, I felt like I had already lost my husband, my sister, and, in many ways, my family. Then I lost my baby too. I truly didn’t know how much more I was capable of carrying.
Several months later, Ryan and my sister mailed out invitations to their wedding. They invited me. They also invited the children. I refused immediately. There was no universe in which I was going to sit politely among relatives while my husband married the woman who had helped tear apart our family.
But my oldest daughter, Amelia, surprised me. She was nine years old. And she told me she wanted to attend her father’s wedding. Hearing that hurt, but I didn’t stop her.
Ryan had failed me as a husband, but he was still her father. I knew our children would continue having some kind of relationship with him, and I never wanted them to believe they were being forced to choose between us. So I told Amelia she could go.
