Page 174 of Babies for the Big Shot

I hear the door crack open, but I barely register the movement.

My focus is still entirely on Sara, the babies, the overwhelming wave of everything I can’t control. The sound of soft footsteps at the threshold doesn’t even compute.

But then I hear it… her voice. Low, hesitant.

“I thought you might… need someone.”

I freeze.

It’s as though the entire room just… disappears. The world outside this sterile hospital bubble fades. My pulse quickens. My heart stutters.

It’s her.

Evelyn.

She’s standing there in the doorway, just… looking at us. As if she never left.

My mind races, but it can’t catch up to the sight in front of me.

My sister.

It’s been years. Years since I’ve seen her face, heard her voice, felt the weight of her presence.

I don’t know how to process this, how to react to the fact that after everything, she’s standing there, looking at me with those familiar eyes that still hold all the sharpness, the coldness, and somehow, a softness I haven’t seen in a lifetime.

She’s wearing an oversized sweater and jeans, her hair a mess of curls held loosely in a bun, like she just threw it up in a rush. Her face is a little tired, maybe from a long shift, maybe from something else entirely.

But she’s here.

I blink, trying to shake the fog that’s clouding my head, but it doesn’t help. I look at Sara, and I see the same disbelief mirrored in her expression. We both stare at Evelyn in shock.

How is she even here right now?

How does she know?

She steps inside the room, her gaze flickering briefly to the babies, Ethan, Samuel, and Lily, before landing back on us.

“I saw the hospital dash online. Sorry, I know that sucks…”

I roll my eyes. “I am getting thoroughly sick of journalists.”

Sara, still holding Lily, looks at Evelyn with a calm I can’t quite match. “I don’t care how you found out about this, I’m just so glad you’re here.”

I try to steady my breath, but it’s getting harder. Sara doesn’t seem as thrown as I am. She just looks at Evelyn with those steady eyes of hers, the same eyes she gave me when she first saw me, and the same eyes she’s giving our children now.

Her calmness is almost a balm, even if I’m too tense to appreciate it.

Finally, Evelyn steps forward, her gaze still on the babies, her expression softening in a way I haven’t seen in years.

“They need an aunt,” she says, the words quiet, as though testing them out. “Like you said, they need family.”

The words hit me hard.

Family.

I had no idea how badly I needed that word to be spoken, or how long it’s been since I’ve heard it from someone who isn’t Sara. But hearing it from Evelyn, especially after everything… it cuts deep.

The silence in the room stretches, and I’m acutely aware of the distance between us, between me and Evelyn, between me and the person who I wish had been there all along. The guilt, the regret, the weight of everything unresolved, it hangs over me in a storm cloud.