Beside them sat Antonia’s brand-new diaper bag, upright and neat, like a package left for pickup.
Ian had packed my life into plastic while I was still recovering in a hospital bed.
Through the front window, I could see the nursery.
The crib he’d assembled with his own hands.
The rocking chair where I’d planned to nurse her at night.
I called him once more and heard his phone ringing somewhere inside the house.
He didn’t answer.
He didn’t even come to the door.
Dad carried the bags to the trunk one at a time without saying a word.
That evening, I cried beside Antonia’s bassinet in my childhood bedroom.
But when I looked at her, I knew one thing.
She deserved to be loved.
And I wasn’t going to spend her first days begging someone to recognize how precious she was.
The next morning, I was feeding her when the doorbell rang.
“I’ll get it,” I said, before Mom could stand.
I carried Antonia to the door.
Ian was standing on the porch.
Leona was beside him, in a camel coat, with the Birkin over her arm.
Both looked as though they hadn’t slept.
The moment he saw Antonia, tears rolled down his cheeks.
“Liza,” he whispered. “Please. I need to see her.”
“You already saw her, Ian.”
“Please. There’s something I have to explain.”
Anger rose beneath my exhaustion.
“You told me not to come home. You ignored my calls. You put my things in trash bags. And now you want to see our daughter?”
He covered his face with his hands.
“I know what I did.”
“Then why are you here?”
His voice cracked.
“Because if I don’t tell you the truth now, I might lose everything.”
I held Antonia closer.
“Then tell me.”
He looked at me at last.
“There’s something about my past I should have told you long before we ever tried to have a baby.”
“Ian,” Leona said sharply. “She won’t understand.”
This time, he turned to his mother.
“No, Mom. I’ve kept this secret long enough.”
Leona went silent.
Ian took a trembling breath and began to speak.
I grabbed the doorframe with my free hand, and my legs felt like water.
