My chest tightened.
No.
Not—
Lily held up an old spiral notebook.
I stopped breathing.
They had found it.
The notebook.
Twenty-one years of entries.
Every fear.
Every failure.
Every birthday.
Every night I thought I wasn’t enough.
“No,” I whispered.
Sophie opened it.
“The first entry was written on our first birthday.”
Then she read.
“I have three little girls asleep ten feet away from me, and I am terrified.
“I don’t know whether I can give them everything they deserve.
“I don’t know whether I’ll ever have enough money.
“I don’t know whether I’m doing anything right.
“But there is one thing I know.
“Tomorrow morning, when they wake up, I’ll still be here.”
I covered my mouth.
The entire room disappeared.
I remembered that night.
The kitchen light.
Three secondhand cribs.
A pile of bottles drying beside the sink.
Twenty-seven-year-old me sitting at that table, convinced I was failing three babies who deserved so much more.
