The principal glanced between us.
“This is Lucas Hayes. He transferred to Cedarbrook last month.”
Noah frowned.
“Mom, are you okay?”
I could not answer.
Eight years earlier, I had given birth to twin boys.
Or at least, I had believed I had.
The pregnancy had been difficult from the beginning.
By thirty-three weeks, I had severe blood-pressure complications.
At thirty-four weeks, everything went wrong.
There were flashing lights.
Doctors moving too quickly.
A mask over my face.
Someone saying one baby’s heart rate was dropping.
Then nothing.
When I woke properly almost two days later, my husband, Adrian Cole, sat beside my hospital bed holding one tiny baby.
Noah.
There should have been another bassinet.
There wasn’t.
I remembered asking:
“Where’s the other baby?”
Adrian’s face collapsed.
He told me our second son had not survived.
He said the doctors had tried everything.
He said I had been too unstable to be told immediately.
