“I don’t want to take your place,” I told her.
Her eyes filled.
“I want to know my son. And if there’s any chance left, I want my sister back too.”
Beth was quiet for a long time.
Then she nodded.
“We do it slowly.”
I swallowed.
“And honestly.”
“Yes.”
So that was what we did.
Slowly.
The first few weeks were painful.
Sometimes Beth would begin telling me about Stefan’s first tooth, his first day of preschool, or the time he had a terrible fever.
Then she would stop because she thought the memories were hurting me.
They were.
But I still wanted to hear them.
Pretending those years didn’t exist would only create another lie.
Sometimes I went home afterward and cried because I knew my own child’s life through stories instead of memories.
But I kept going.
The boys began spending Sunday afternoons together at our parents’ house.
