“She was so happy,” her mother whispered.
“She was.”
Her eyes lowered.
“Before your wedding, Mary finally told me what that night had done to her.”
“Did you apologize?”
“Of course.”
“Did she forgive you?”
“She said she knew I loved her. She just wished she’d known it when she was little.”
I sat down.
“When she became pregnant, she brought it up again,” her mother continued. “She said she couldn’t bear the thought of her girls feeling unwanted if anything happened.”
“What did you tell her?”
“I promised I’d be there. Whatever happened.”
I stared at the envelope.
“And then you disappeared.”
She flinched.
“Yes.”
Suddenly, I remembered something.
A few weeks before delivery, Mary and I had been lying in bed. One baby kicked hard enough to make her stomach move visibly.
I’d laughed.
Mary hadn’t.
“If something happened to me, would you ever wish we’d never had them?”
