Chapter 2

Celeste arrived the next day anyway.

As the maid led them upstairs, Aaron spotted the open nursery door and ran inside.

He touched the stuffed animals on the shelf, looked up at the star lights on the ceiling, then wrapped his arms around Gabriel's leg.

“Uncle Gabriel, I want this room.”

Celeste followed him in. “This is the baby's room, sweetheart. Yours is over there.”

“But I like this one.” Aaron held on tighter. “I want to sleep here.”

I stood in the doorway.

“All of Joseph's things are in here.”

Gabriel had come over carrying our son. He told the maid to take Aaron's suitcase out.

“Listen to your mother. Go and see your room. If you like any of these toys, we can have them brought over.”

Aaron burst into tears.

“I don't want the toys. I want this room.”

He pointed at the ceiling through his tears.

“It has stars at night. I won't be scared of the dark.”

Celeste's eyes filled as she reached for him.

“His father used to watch the stars with him. It's all right. I'll stay with him tonight. Don't worry about us.”

I knew what would happen next.

Sure enough, Gabriel turned to me and asked if Aaron could have the room for a few days.

“The baby sleeps in our room at night anyway. I'll move the crib in there for now. We'll get the same lights put in Aaron's room, then move him back.”

He wasn't ordering me. He even waited for me to agree.

But Aaron was clinging to his neck, Celeste stood beside him, and even the maids had stopped to hear my answer. If I said no, I’d be turning away the widow and son of the brother who’d died saving his life.

“Do what you want.”

Gabriel took that as a yes and relaxed.

He moved the crib into our bedroom himself. He arranged the bottle sterilizer and diapers just the way I kept them. He even added padding to the doorframe so the baby wouldn't get bumped.

He always found a way to tidy up the damage until it looked as though I'd lost nothing at all.

That afternoon, he bathed our son and still remembered to remind me to pump.

But when I opened the fridge, half the freezer drawer had been cleared out. The breast milk I'd saved had been neatly moved into the fridge.

Gabriel came up behind me and explained. Aaron was having trouble swallowing. His caregiver had prepared special soft meals, and he'd asked the staff to make room.

“The bags had yesterday's and today's dates on them. I thought one night in the fridge would be fine.”

“That's when I pumped it. Not when it went into the freezer.”

He had the food taken out at once. We put the bags that still had ice crystals back in the freezer and kept the fully thawed ones in the fridge.

“I'm sorry. I should have checked.”

He cleared the drawer and went back twice that afternoon to check on it.

There was more fully thawed milk than Joseph could drink within a day. The rest had to be thrown away.

He stood by the fridge with the last bag in his hand, looking guilty.

“I’ll ask the doctor which formula is best for him. We’ll have it here today.”

He meant it. To him, this was something else he could replace.

I looked at the bags in his hands. He had no idea how many painful, sleepless nights it had taken to fill them.

But then, he’d never paid much attention to what it cost me to give something up.

Before we married, I’d been one of Boston’s youngest neurosurgeons, specializing in brainstem tumors. I’d turned down the chance to lead my own research project because Gabriel needed help running the family.

I’d traded days in the operating room for his accounts, his family dinners, and his men’s problems. Whenever I asked about going back, he needed me to stay a little longer.

I’d given him years.

Now I couldn’t even keep a drawer for our son.