Once they were gone, she turned to face me fully, and I watched her whole expression crack down the middle.
“Did Derek seriously never tell you?”
I let out a laugh that had nothing funny behind it. “Tell me what, Claire?”
That was when she told me the story Derek had given her eight years earlier — the one he’d never once mentioned to me.
Part 2: The Letter
While I was still unconscious after the delivery, Derek had gone straight to Claire. He told her both babies were alive. One of them needed extra medical care he didn’t think he could manage alone. And then, according to him, I had made a request before things turned dangerous — that if anything happened, Claire should raise one of the twins, because I was terrified Derek would be overwhelmed trying to care for two newborns by himself.
I stared at her. “No. I never said that. I would never say that.”
