“Everything’s fine,” he said.
Then he changed the subject so abruptly that I noticed.
Still, I told myself he was nervous.
After everything he and Melissa had endured, maybe happiness itself frightened him.
He nodded.
I felt anger rising again, but this time it was tangled with heartbreak.
“So when the doctors started talking about treatment…”
“All I heard was money.”
His voice broke.
“Bills. Specialists. Surgery. Everything I couldn’t provide.”
I stared at him.
“And that made you abandon your daughter?”
“No.”
He swallowed.
“It made me see
a way to escape.”
Those words chilled me.
Ryan looked toward the bassinet.
“I thought if everyone believed I couldn’t accept her condition, Melissa would hate me for that. But she wouldn’t know I’d already failed her months before.”
My hands curled into fists.
“You were willing to let your wife believe you rejected your own baby because you were too ashamed to admit you lost your job?”
“I thought I was protecting her.”
“From what?”
“From me.”
I shook my head.
“No, Ryan. You were protecting yourself from telling the truth.”
Part 5 — The Lie Beneath the Fear
Hope stirred in the bassinet.
A tiny sound escaped her, halfway between a sigh and a cry.
Both of us looked toward her.
Neither moved.
I studied the man sitting across from me.
My twin.
The person who had held me together when our parents died.
The brother who had picked
