I couldn’t read the last line out loud. I pressed the paper flat against my chest and breathed through my mouth.
Then Ethan asked the question that nearly undid me.
“Mom, do you ever wish you hadn’t had us?”
“What?”
“Because you could’ve been a doctor,” he said, barely audible. “You could’ve had a really nice life,” Noah finished.
It felt as if someone had pressed a flat hand to my lungs and shoved the air out. My children, my entire world, had been carrying a secret fear for a year. Somewhere between the bedtime stories, the scraped knees, and the band concerts, they’d decided that they were the reason my life hadn’t gone another way.
“Come here,” I said. “Both of you.”
They hesitated.
“Now, please.”
They came, all elbows and knees, and I wrapped them up the way I did when they were small enough to fit in one lap. I could feel Noah’s heart racing against my shoulder.
