“No… but no one’s coming back for it, Charlotte.”
Of course he’s right.
It’s been sitting here all this time, waiting. Maybe opening it is the closest thing it’ll ever get to the moment it was meant for.
I look at it one more time before sliding my finger beneath the ribbon and loosening it.
Inside is a small folded card. I open it carefully.
Something slips loose, and I catch it before it can fall. A small glossy photograph. Black and gray. Familiar somehow, though it takes me a second to understand why.
I angle it toward the fading light. At first it’s only blurred shapes and shadows. Then my eyes adjust.
The curve of a skull. A spine. A tiny curled body suspended in that unmistakable stillness.
Not fully formed yet. But there.
Dane leans forward, and I tilt it so he can see.
I watch the exact moment it registers for him—the slight pause, the shift in his expression as recognition settles in. Then he leans back slowly.
“Well.”
A beat passes.
“Damn.”
I lower the photograph and unfold the card beneath it. Three short lines written in Mum’s handwriting.
I wasn’t sure how to tell you this again so I thought I’d let this do it for me.
You’re going to be a dad one more time.
I love you.
—Tara
I read it once. Then again.
The words are clear, but suddenly my vision isn’t. The lines blur without warning as my eyes start to burn. I blink hard, trying to steady myself, but it takes a second for everything to sharpen again.
I close the card around the ultrasound photo and set it carefully on the table, thinking about how Mum carried this with her, keeping it hidden away while she waited for the right moment to give it to Dad.
I don’t know how far along she was, or if anyone else knew. Maybe she’d just found out herself and was waiting for the right moment to finally say it out loud.
I don’t know how she felt about it either. Whether she was happy, overwhelmed, surprised. Whether this baby had beenplanned or whether it changed everything the second she saw those lines appear.
Another person on the yacht. Another life that never made it here with us.
I sit quietly with that thought.
Dane’s hand settles over mine and stays there. We sit quietly like that for a while.
“Another sibling gone,” I say eventually.
“Yeah.”
I look down at the ultrasound one last time—the tiny shape curled into itself, barely there at all—before folding the card closed and pushing it aside.
