“The book you promised to read.”
“You made me look like a liar.”
Mara’s cries became louder.
I shifted Maisie against my shoulder and reached for the warm bottle beside Miles.
“No, Callum.”
My voice was quieter than his.
“I stopped helping you look like a good husband.”
Six months earlier, I would not have believed I was capable of saying those words.
Back then, Callum Reid was the man who rubbed my swollen feet, brought toast to bed, and spoke to my stomach every night.
He had always wanted a large family.
When we learned I was carrying triplets, he cried harder than I did.
The ultrasound technician pointed toward three tiny movements on the screen.
Callum covered his mouth.
“Three?”
“Three,” the technician confirmed.
He took my hand.
“We are going to be a team, Alina.”
He repeated the promise all the way home.
“Every feeding. Every diaper. Every impossible night. You will never do this alone.”
I believed him.
During my seventh month of pregnancy, our friends held a barbecue at the fictional lakeside community of Alderwick Cove.
Callum’s closest friends, Dean and Oliver, handed him a gift bag.
Inside was a black shirt printed with bold white letters:
