“You can call them.”
“But tonight, you’re sleeping somewhere else.”
For once, Ethan did not get to decide when I was prepared to know the truth.
THE NEXT MORNING
Mom opened the door before I even knocked.
“What happened?”
I looked toward my sleeping babies.
Then said the sentence I still could not believe.
“Ethan has a seventeen-year-old daughter.”
Mom stared at me.
“She knows Kai and Theo’s names.”
I swallowed.
“She knew what my babies looked like.”
“And I didn’t even know her name.”
The following morning, I called Ethan.
“Come over.”
“Mom will watch the boys.”
He arrived twenty minutes later wearing the same clothes from Cedar Hollow.
I did not offer coffee.
“Start at the beginning.”
Ethan sat across from me.
“Esme and I were nineteen when Isla was born.”
“My parents thought I was ruining my future.”
“They pressured me into signing a custody agreement.”
