I believed her about that.
Connor had not only taken the embryos. He had taken the name too. A private piece of hope from a woman he claimed had never wanted a family badly enough.
He had built his new life out of stolen fragments and then brought it to my workplace like a trophy.
The room blurred.
I turned away, blinking hard.
Through the small window in the door, I could see the pediatric wing continuing around us. Nurses moved with purpose. Parents carried backpacks and juice boxes. A little girl in purple slippers shuffled past holding her father’s hand.
Life did not stop because yours cracked open.
It never had.
“Kirsten,” Melinda said behind me, “I am sorry.”
I did not turn around.
“I know it isn’t enough,” she continued. “I know there isn’t a sentence big enough. But I am sorry.”
There had been a time when her apology would have been the thing I wanted most. I had imagined it in the early months after the divorce, back when pain still made me rehearse conversations in the shower and in traffic and at three in the morning.
