Her eyes lifted to mine.
“They’re yours, Ethan.”
The room went utterly still.
I had imagined the words. Feared them. Hoped for them in a place so selfish I hated myself for it.
But hearing them spoken aloud was different.
The world narrowed to Hannah’s face and the sound of my own breath.
“Lily and Noah,” she said. “They’re yours.”
I gripped the back of the chair beside me.
“How?”
It was a foolish question.
A stunned question.
Hannah’s eyebrows rose faintly. “I assume medical school covered that.”
Despite everything, a broken laugh escaped me.
Then I sat down because my legs no longer trusted me.
“But five years…”
“They were born now,” she said. “That doesn’t mean they were conceived five years ago.”
Confusion cut through the shock.
Hannah looked away, and for the first time, I saw shame flicker across her face.
Not guilt.
Shame.
The kind placed on someone by circumstances they did not choose.
“I had embryos frozen,” she said.
I stared at her.
“What?”
She rubbed her thumb over the edge of her blanket. “After we broke up, I found out I was pregnant.”
The words hit me so hard I could not speak.
“I lost the baby at eleven weeks,” she continued, her voice barely holding. “I was alone. I didn’t have insurance. I didn’t know where to go. A clinic helped me afterward. There were complications, and later a doctor told me if I wanted biological children someday, I might need fertility treatment.”
“Hannah…”
“I had no money for that,” she said quickly, as if stopping my pity before it could reach her. “But before everything fell apart, we had signed those forms at the university clinic. Remember?”
I did.
A research study.
A fertility preservation program connected to one of my family’s biotech foundations. We had laughed about the paperwork because we were young and in love and believed the future was generous. It had involved genetic screening, reproductive health testing, and optional preservation for participants at risk of future fertility issues.
At the time, it had felt abstract.
Like signing papers for a someday we were certain we would reach together.
“They contacted me two years later,” Hannah said. “There had been an administrative review. They said there were preserved embryos connected to our file. I thought it was a mistake.”
My skin went cold.
“Our file?”
She nodded.
“I didn’t use them right away. I couldn’t. I was barely surviving. But then last year, my doctor told me my chances were getting worse. Mara said family doesn’t have to look the way other people expect. I thought…” Her voice broke. “I thought I could love them enough for both of us.”
My chest ached with a pressure so deep it felt physical.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Her eyes flashed.
“I tried.”
I went still.
Hannah reached toward the bedside drawer and pulled out her notebook. Her hand shook as she opened it, flipping past pages of careful notes, medical instructions, lists of baby supplies, rent calculations, and names written over and over in different combinations.
Then she removed three folded pieces of paper from the back pocket.
“I wrote these,” she said. “One when I found out the embryos existed. One before the transfer. One when I found out it was twins.”
She handed them to me.
