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“And you weren’t worried about giving her up?” I ask.

“But I wasn’t giving her up,” she says matter-of-factly. “Not in the traditional sense. Because I would be there, loving her and watching her grow, the same way Leo loves Raine. The three of us were built for this type of life.”

Even from the very limited interaction I’ve had with Jesse and Leo, I could see what she meant about being built for this life. Raine was proof of just how well it could work.

“And then I woke up one morning and everything felt off.” Her body sinks against mine, and her grip on my fingers tightens as her mind takes her back. “She wasn’t moving. I called the hospital and they told me to load up on sugar, certain it would get her moving. A few hours later, still nothing. I felt nauseous from the food or from the dread, it didn’t really matter. My intuition screamed at me to get to the hospital, so that’s what I did.

“Jesse, Leo, and I sat in a hospital room as they told us there was no rhyme or no reason. It was like she went to sleep and never woke up.” I expect her to take a moment to pause, but I realize she’s too deep into the story now, and she was ripping the Band-Aid all the way off. “I remember feeling like someone had sliced my chest open with the news, but it was nothing compared to having to give birth to her.”

My own eyes start to sting. I wasn’t a mother and I’d never carried a baby, but I know enough about how hard it was for my own mother to give birth to a baby she didn’t want, and I could only imagine how much worse it was when it was a baby you did.

“I tried to detach myself from it all instantly. Mentally telling myself everybody else’s pain was worse, and there is a very real part of me that believes that.” I feel a tear drip onto the top of my hand, and I hold her tighter. “I just didn’t realize how much that same sentiment was eating me up inside.

“She grew in me,” she whispers. “I have marks on my body that are hers and hers alone, and I don’t know how to let any of that go.”

“But why should you? Who told you to let those things go?”

“Because I’m not her mother,” she counters.

“I call bullshit,” I say, feeling myself getting heated. “You’reamother, you’re a parent, you’re an amazing human being, with a heart two sizes too big, and I have no doubt you would’ve loved her with every inch of it. It was never going to be out of sight, out of mind. You gave birth to her sister, your best friends are her fathers; no matter what, you would’ve been somebody to that little girl.”

I try to taper down my emotions, old and new ones rising up to the surface.

“Take it from me, a child who didn’t have it. You can never have too much love, Zara. You can have little or none, but there is no such thing as too much.” I let out a shaky breath before pressing a kiss to the side of her neck. “You deserved to let yourself mourn her the same way you would’ve loved her. With everything you have.”

32

ZARA

The drive back home to Jesse and Leo’s house is quiet, but I sit with a sense of peace I did not expect to possess on a day like today. Clementine was right, and my choice to be the martyr and sacrifice myself for everyone else was the wrong one.

Hindsight is a bitch like that.

There is no propriety on grief. We’re not all carbon copies of one another, and there is no hard and fast rule about who can and cannot grieve or how much is too much or not enough.

I glance over at Clementine, who is comfortably driving Leo’s car back.

“Just turn right over here,” I instruct. “It’s the third house on the left.”

I point to their driveway, and she parks with ease beside Jesse’s car. We climb out and Clementine waits for me to lead the way at the bottom of their porch steps.

“I’m going to need to talk to RaineandJesse and Leo,” I tell her

“Of course.” She tucks some of my hair behind my ear. “I’m here for you, in whatever way you need.”

My hands reach for her waist. “You’re amazing, you know that?”

“I think you may have mentioned it a time or two,” she says, a soft smile teasing her lips. “Are you ready to go in?”

“Not even a little,” I say honestly. “Before we go in, can you tell me what happened with Raine?”

“She was upset at work, and I remembered you said it wasn’t a good time for her, so naturally, I asked what was wrong,” she explains. “She told me, and as soon as the words left her mouth, I knew I was following you here.”

My heart beats fiercely for this woman, for her kindness and her friendship with my daughter and for all her thoughtfulness, especially when I was so thoughtless.

“I’m sorry,” I say, closing the distance between us. “For not telling you. It was never my intention to keep it from you like some sort of secret.”

“It’s okay. I get it.”