Then silence.
The air felt heavy. I could hear the beeping of the monitors and the quiet tension in the room.
When I opened my eyes again, the surgery was over. My body ached, my throat was dry, and Daniel was sitting beside me, his eyes red and tired.
He took my hand and whispered, “Nine, love. Nine strong little fighters.”
Tears rolled down my cheeks. “And the tenth?” I asked softly.
He hesitated for a moment. “It wasn’t a baby,” he said. “It was… a fibroid tumor. That’s why you were in so much pain. Your body thought it was protecting ten lives when one of them wasn’t real.”
I couldn’t hold back the tears. I didn’t cry because of the tumor — I cried because for months, I had loved it as if it were alive.
