“After Mom and Dad. I was going to give you and Melissa a daughter because I couldn’t get them back. And you were going to let me carry your lie into a nursery.”
“Ivy…”
“I’m done carrying it.”
My brother looked up.
“You tell Melissa tonight. All of it. The job, the cards, the coffee shop, the reason you walked out of that hospital room.”
“She’ll leave me.”
“I’m done carrying it.”
“Maybe. But that’s her choice to make with the truth in her hands, not the version you’ve been feeding her.”
“Ivy, please…”
“Tonight, Ryan. Or I’m getting in my car with Hope, and I’m telling her myself.”
My brother didn’t answer. He just nodded once, like a man agreeing to walk into deep water.
I picked up my car keys.
“I’ll follow you over.”
“That’s her choice to make.”
***
That evening, I carried Hope up the walkway to Ryan and Melissa’s house.
