That’s when I made the discovery that shattered me.
The day I buried Kate, the only comfort I had were our photos. I picked up our engagement picture just to see her face again—alive, radiant, glowing. My hands stilled when I felt a bulge beneath the backing that didn’t belong there.
Frowning, I loosened the frame. Something slipped out and floated to the carpet. My chest tightened.
It was another photograph—worn, bent at the corners, as if it had been handled many times before being hidden away. In it, Kate sat in a hospital bed, younger than I’d ever known her, cradling a newborn swaddled in pink. Her expression was unlike anything I’d seen before: exhausted, frightened, yet brimming with raw, fierce love that made my heart ache.
We had tried for years, but we were never able to have children. So who was this baby? And why had Kate kept it from me?
With trembling hands, I turned the photo over. Scrawled in Kate’s handwriting—more unsteady than I’d ever seen—were the words: Mama will always love you. Beneath it, a phone number.
