I nodded.
“I wondered that too.”
Julian touched the photograph.
“But I don't want to live that way.”
I looked at him.
He swallowed.
“Lucy already considers you her grandmother.”
My eyes filled.
“And I…”
He hesitated.
I reached for his hand.
“What is it, sweetheart?”
His voice broke.
“I think I'd like to call you Mom. If that's all right.”
For a second, I couldn't breathe.
Forty-eight years of marriage.
Years of fertility treatments.
Disappointment.
Quiet grief.
Birthdays when I wondered what our children might have looked like.
Christmas mornings that seemed a little too quiet.
All of it rushed through me.
I looked at Julian.
Forty-six years old.
A good man.
A father.
A son.
Not mine by birth.
But standing before me, asking whether he could belong to me.
Tears poured down my cheeks.
I reached toward him.
“Oh, Julian.”
He began crying too.
I pulled him into my arms.
