And before I could process what was happening, my brother placed his newborn daughter back into my arms.
I stared at him.
“She’s your daughter.”
My voice sounded thin and unfamiliar.
Melissa stood.
“What do you mean you can’t take her? Ryan, explain yourself.”
He wouldn’t meet her eyes.
Instead, he said quietly, “Look at her back.”
My stomach tightened.
I loosened the blanket and carefully turned the baby.
Near the base of her spine was a small reddish raised area.
It wasn’t large.
But I had seen information about possible complications during the pregnancy.
The moment I saw it, fear went through me.
“Spina bifida,” I whispered.
Melissa’s reaction broke my heart.
“No.”
Then again, louder.
“No. They told us everything was fine.”
Her voice rose until it became a cry.
“They said she was fine!”
Nurses rushed back into the room.
Ryan stood there for another moment, frozen.
Then he turned around.
And walked away.
He simply walked out.
I watched my twin brother disappear through the hospital doorway while Melissa collapsed into a chair.
I was exhausted, shaking, still attached to monitors, holding a newborn whose parents had spent years begging for the chance to love her.
I looked down at her tiny face.
Her eyes were closed.
Her little mouth opened and closed as she settled against me.
Something fierce rose inside my chest.
I bent my head toward her.
“You aren’t being abandoned,” I whispered. “Not while I’m here.”
At that moment, I meant every word.
Part 4 — Three Days Later
For the next three days, my life changed completely.
The doctors talked to us about Hope’s condition and what treatment could involve.
That was the name I began calling her.
Hope.
Because after everything that had happened, I needed her name to mean something.
Melissa was devastated and barely able to speak to Ryan.
Ryan had vanished emotionally after leaving the hospital.
Meanwhile, I went home with a recovering body, a newborn schedule, and more questions than answers.
Three days after the birth, Ryan finally showed up at my house.
Hope was asleep in a bassinet near the window.
Gabriel was down the hall in his room beneath his favorite dinosaur blanket.
I stood in the kitchen wearing sweatpants, my hair pulled into a messy knot, surviving on almost no sleep.
Ryan still looked as though he hadn’t recovered from the hospital.
