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I’d smiled and wept and fallen madly in love with the daughter Aslan had given me.
And that night, when everyone had left the hospital and my daughter was sleeping in a bassinet beside me, I’d clutched Aslan’s shell and whispered into its peach and cream spikes. “You have a daughter, kocam (my husband). A daughter with dark hair like you, dark eyes like you, and the same serious little mouth.”
Tears had poured.
Grief had snapped.
Anguish pushed me deep.
And an awful little whisper appeared, hissing in my ear, revealing I was free now.
I was no longer carrying life.
That life was born.
That life was perfect.
Which meant I was free to do whatever I wanted with mine.
Those whispers never left me alone.
For four months, I did my best to ignore them.
I learned how to nurse, bathe, burp, and feed my newborn.
Ayla was passed from one embrace to another, chortling at her two uncles, blowing bubbles at her grandfather, and trying to smile at her grandmother.
Everyone was besotted with her.
So they didn’t notice me.
Didn’t notice me fading, faking, failing.
They didn’t notice until I was on a plane, and it was too late.
Chapter Thirty-Four
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Nerida
AGE: 21 YRS OLD
*
(Love in Lithuanian: Meile)
MY BREASTS THROBBED AS MY BODY SLOWLY stopped producing milk. Forty-eight hours since I’d seen my baby or nursed her. And it hurt. Emotionally, spiritually, physically.
I didn’t know how I’d left her.
I didn’t fully remember making the decision.
It was as if a higher power had corrupted my mind, invaded my choices, and when I’d woken up, I was in Turkey.
I winced as a sharp pain lanced through my left breast.
The bruising had started in the sky, and it was all I could do to ignore the instinctual urge to turn around and run back home to my child.
