Then she disconnected.
I called back.
Straight to voicemail.
Again.
Voicemail.
Again.
Nothing.
By sunrise, I had called more times than I could count.
And somewhere between the first bottle of the morning and the second load of baby laundry, the truth finally settled over me.
Kayla had not gone out for a few hours.
She had left.
And she expected me to deal with what remained.
I looked at my granddaughters sleeping side by side and felt terror unlike anything I’d known before.
I had already raised a child.
I had already done sleepless nights, scraped knees, school projects, teenage arguments, and college applications.
I had imagined the next stage of my life differently.
But Jennifer stretched one tiny hand toward Lizzie in her sleep, their fingers brushing.
And suddenly none of that mattered.
They had already lost their father.
I would not allow them to lose
babies.
