PART 2: 👇
James lowered his eyes.
Then he said the name.
“Rebecca.”
For a moment, I genuinely thought I had heard him wrong.
“What?”
“Rebecca.”
My fingers went cold.
I hadn’t heard that name spoken inside our home in more than eleven years.
Rebecca was James’s younger sister.
The sister who disappeared.
Not missing.
Not kidnapped.
She had simply walked away from the family.
The last time I had seen her, she was twenty-three years old, standing in our driveway with two suitcases beside her.
She and James had been screaming at each other.
Their father had died six months earlier.
Their mother had already been gone for years.
And whatever happened between James and Rebecca after their father’s death had destroyed what remained of their relationship.
Rebecca left town the next morning.
Changed her phone number.
Stopped answering emails.
Eventually, even birthday cards came back unopened.
James never told me the full story.
Whenever I asked, he always gave me the same answer.
“Some things are better left alone.”
Now, eleven years later, he was standing outside a hospital room containing a newborn baby girl.
And saying Rebecca’s name.
I looked through the glass.
“That’s Rebecca’s baby?”
James nodded.
My chest loosened slightly.
Then tightened again.
“Where is she?”
James didn’t answer.
“James.”
His eyes filled with tears.
“She’s downstairs.”
“Then why are we standing up here?”
He swallowed.
“Because she can’t come upstairs.”
I stared at him.
“What does that mean?”
James looked toward the baby.
Then back at me.
“She died this morning.”
Everything around me seemed to disappear.
The nurses.
The hospital carts.
The voices coming from nearby rooms.
All of it faded.
“What?”
“She died, Emily.”
I covered my mouth.
“No.”
James nodded.
“Complications after delivery.”
“But…”
I couldn’t even form the sentence.
Rebecca was thirty-four.
Maybe thirty-five.
I wasn’t sure anymore.
That was how long she’d been gone.
“When did you find out she was pregnant?”
“Today.”
I stared at him.
“Today?”
“She called me at 5:17 this morning.”
James pulled out his phone.
There it was.
A call lasting four minutes and twelve seconds.
“After eleven years?”
“Yes.”
“What did she say?”
His voice broke.
“She said, ‘James, I need you to come to St. Matthew’s. Please don’t ask questions. Just come.’”
“And you came?”
“Of course I came.”
Something about that answer hurt.
Not because he had come.
He should have.
But because James had left our house that morning saying he had an early meeting.
“You lied to me.”
“I didn’t know what was happening.”
“You could’ve called.”
“I know.”
I looked through the glass again.
The baby moved slightly beneath the pink blanket.
Tiny.
Helpless.
Completely unaware that the woman who had carried her would never hold her again.
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