“This isn’t the baby we were promised.”
I stared at my own sister, certain I’d misheard her.
“What did you just say?”
“We were told something different,” she said. “We can’t take this one.”
The baby stirred against my chest, small fists working free of the swaddle, entirely unaware she was the subject of the sentence that had just detonated in the middle of the room.
My pulse pounded so hard my own breathing sounded distant, underwater.
“Explain that to me,” I said. “Right now. Please.”
Neither of them moved for a second, the whole room suspended in that terrible, silent gap between a question and its answer.
Paige and Desmond turned away from me, whispering to each other, completely ignoring both me and the baby in my arms.
I only caught fragments.
