They Texted Me During My Husband’s Funeral

My phone buzzed during the worst moment of my life. I was standing at the graveside, holding my sobbing children, watching as they lowered my husband into the ground. The messages kept coming—insistent, demanding, impossible to ignore. When I finally checked my phone, I couldn’t believe what I was reading. What happened next would change everything about my understanding of family, loyalty, and what it truly means to protect the people you love.

This is the story of how one devastating loss revealed an even deeper betrayal, and how I found the strength to fight back when I had nothing left to lose.

The morning of David’s funeral started with rain. I watched it streak down the window of our bedroom—the bedroom we’d shared for twelve years—and felt nothing. Numbness had become my constant companion since the accident three weeks ago. My husband, my partner, the father of our two children, was gone because some drunk driver decided to run a red light at three o’clock on a Tuesday afternoon.

David had been on his way home from work early, planning to surprise the kids by picking them up from school himself. He never made it. The other driver walked away with minor injuries. David died at the scene.

Emma, our ten-year-old daughter, came into the room wearing her black dress. Her eyes were swollen from crying all night. Behind her stood Lucas, our seven-year-old son, clutching the stuffed bear David had won for him at the county fair last summer. That bear had become Lucas’s security blanket in the weeks since his father died.

“Mama, do I have to go?” Lucas whispered, his voice so small it nearly broke me.

I knelt down and pulled both of them close, breathing in the familiar scent of their shampoo, feeling their small bodies shake with grief that children their age shouldn’t have to understand.

“We’re going to say goodbye to Daddy together,” I said softly, stroking Lucas’s hair. “All three of us. We’ll be brave together.”

The funeral home was packed with people. David had been loved by so many—his colleagues from the engineering firm where he’d worked for fifteen years, our neighbors who remembered him always being the first to shovel snow from elderly residents’ driveways, friends from college who’d stayed close over the years, members of our church community. They all came to pay their respects to a man who had lived his life with kindness and integrity.

My parents were conspicuously absent from the service itself. They’d called that morning with an excuse that made my stomach turn.

“We’ll meet you at the cemetery,” Mom had said breezily. “I have a hair appointment I simply can’t reschedule. You understand.”

I hadn’t understood. I still didn’t. But I’d learned long ago not to expect much from them.

At the graveside, I stood between my children under a gray sky that matched my mood. Emma gripped my left hand so tightly I lost feeling in my fingers. Lucas pressed against my right side, his face buried in my coat, his small body trembling with each sob. The pastor’s words washed over us like distant waves—something about eternal rest and God’s mercy and David being in a better place now.

But there was no better place than here, with us, with his children who needed him.

Buzz, buzz, buzz.

My phone vibrated in my coat pocket. I ignored it, trying to focus on the pastor’s words, on being present for this final goodbye.

Buzz, buzz, buzz.

The vibrations continued, insistent and demanding. Emma looked up at me with red-rimmed eyes, confusion crossing her grief-stricken face.

“Mom, your phone,” she whispered.

“It’s okay, sweetheart. It can wait.” I squeezed her hand gently. “Nothing is more important than this.”

But whoever was calling didn’t agree. The buzzing continued relentlessly, even as they lowered my husband’s casket into the ground. Even as Lucas started crying harder, his small shoulders heaving with the kind of grief that has no words. Even as I wrapped both arms around my children and held them while the first shovelful of dirt hit the polished wood with a hollow thump that echoed in my chest.

David’s best friend Tyler stood nearby, tears streaming down his face. David’s mother Joan sobbed quietly into her husband Richard’s shoulder. These were the people who truly loved David, who understood what we’d lost.

After everyone had paid their condolences and drifted away, promising to check in and offering help I knew I’d be too proud to accept, I finally checked my phone in the car. Emma and Lucas were buckled in the back seat, exhausted from crying, staring out the windows at nothing.

Seventeen messages in the family group chat.

My hands shook as I opened the thread. The first message from Mom made me read it three times, certain I’d misunderstood.

Mom: “Can you pick up pizza on your way home? And please leave your family drama at the door today. Friends are coming over.”

I stared at the screen, my brain refusing to process the words. Family drama? I’d just buried my husband. My children had just watched their father lowered into the ground. What drama could possibly matter more than that?

I scrolled through the rest of the messages, each one more surreal than the last.

Dad: “Get the large Supreme from Marco’s. Don’t cheap out.”

Valerie (my sister): “Yeah, don’t forget extra cheese this time.”

Mom: “We need three pizzas, actually. The Hendersons are coming and you know how much Tom eats.”

Valerie: “lol. True. Better make it four to be safe.”

Dad: “Where are you? Text back.”

Mom: “This is ridiculous. We’ve been waiting for over an hour.”

Valerie: “She probably forgot. She always does.”

The messages kept going, getting progressively more irritated, more demanding. They were planning a dinner party. Today. While I was burying my husband. While their grandchildren were crying over their father’s grave.

“Mom, can we go home?” Emma’s voice pulled me back to reality. She looked so small in the back seat, her black dress bunched around her, her hair coming loose from the braid I’d carefully done that morning.

I looked at my children in the rearview mirror. Their faces were pale, streaked with tears, exhausted from grief no child should have to bear. Lucas had cried himself into hiccups. Emma looked like she might shatter if I touched her.

These babies had just watched their father being buried, and my parents wanted pizza.

The drive home took twenty minutes through streets that looked too normal, too unchanged by the devastation that had just occurred. I didn’t stop for pizza. I didn’t respond to the messages that kept coming, each one more demanding than the last. I simply drove, my hands gripping the steering wheel until my knuckles turned white, my mind strangely blank except for one repeating thought: How dare they. How dare they.

When I pulled into the driveway of the house David and I had bought five years ago—the house we’d painted together, where we’d built a life, where we’d planned to grow old—I saw my parents’ silver Lexus parked at an angle, blocking the garage. Valerie’s red BMW sat behind it. Through the front window, I could see people moving around inside my home, shadows against the curtains.

My home. The home they apparently felt entitled to use for their party.

“Why are Grandma and Grandpa here?” Lucas asked, his voice confused and small. “I thought you said they weren’t coming to the funeral.”

I unbuckled my seatbelt, my movements mechanical.

“Stay in the car for just a minute, okay? Both of you.”

“But Mom—” Emma started.

“Please, Emma. Just one minute. I need to check on something inside.”

I walked up the front path, my heels clicking on the wet pavement with each step. The door was unlocked. I’d given my parents a key years ago for emergencies—in case I locked myself out or needed someone to water plants when we traveled. Apparently, they’d decided a pizza emergency qualified for key usage.

Inside my living room, I found chaos that made my grief-fogged brain struggle to comprehend what I was seeing.

Mom had rearranged my furniture, pushing the couch against the far wall and bringing in folding chairs from somewhere. Dad was setting up a makeshift bar on David’s desk—the antique oak desk he’d inherited from his grandfather, the one he’d lovingly restored and used for his home office. There were bottles of liquor I didn’t recognize lined up like soldiers, glasses arranged in neat rows.

Valerie was sprawled on my rearranged couch, scrolling through her phone and laughing at something on the screen. And there were strangers—at least six people I didn’t recognize—laughing and drinking wine like this was some kind of social event, like my home was a venue they’d rented for the evening.

The cognitive dissonance was staggering. I’d just come from my husband’s funeral. My children were in the car, crying. And these people were having a party in my living room.

Mom spotted me first. Her face twisted into irritation, the expression I knew so well from childhood—the one that said I’d disappointed her again.

“Finally,” she said, her voice sharp. “Where’s the pizza? The Hendersons are starving. We’ve been waiting for over an hour.”

I stood in the doorway of my own home, still wearing my funeral dress, and stared at her. Words failed me completely. My mouth opened, but nothing came out. My brain couldn’t form coherent thoughts beyond a repeating loop of disbelief.

“Well?” Dad walked over, his face already flushed from the bourbon he was clearly enjoying. His eyes were slightly unfocused, his movements loose. “Don’t just stand there looking pathetic. Did you get the food or not?”

Valerie glanced up from her phone, a smirk playing at the corners of her mouth.

“Oh my God, she forgot. I literally told you she’d mess it up.” She looked at the strangers, rolling her eyes dramatically. “She always does. Cannot be trusted with the simplest tasks.”

Something inside me shifted. The numbness that had cushioned me for weeks suddenly lifted, burned away by a clarity so sharp it was almost painful. I saw them clearly for the first time in my life—really saw them. Not as the parents and sister I’d spent decades trying to please, but as strangers who happened to share my blood.

Strangers who were cruel.

“Get out,” I said quietly.

The words came out calmer than I felt, steady despite the rage building in my chest like a storm.

Mom laughed. Actually laughed, a sharp bark of derision.

“Excuse me? What did you just say?”

“I said, get out of my house.”

The room went quiet. Even the strangers stopped their conversations, sensing something had shifted.

Dad’s face turned red, the color creeping up from his collar. I recognized that look—it was the one that had terrified me as a child, the one that preceded yelling and punishment.

“Now you listen here, young lady—”

“My children,” I interrupted, my voice still eerily calm, “are in the car crying because we just buried their father. Their father. My husband. And you want pizza?”

The steadiness in my voice seemed to unsettle them more than if I’d screamed. Mom took a step back. The strangers shifted uncomfortably.

“This is my home. David’s home. Our children’s home. Get these people out and leave. Now.”

Mom moved faster than I expected. Her hand connected with my cheek in a sharp slap that echoed through the suddenly silent room. The sting spread across my face, hot and immediate, but I didn’t flinch. I just looked at her—really looked at her—and saw a woman I didn’t recognize. Had I ever really known her?

“Seriously?” Mom’s voice was shrill now, losing its controlled edge. “One simple task and you couldn’t even do that? We’ve been here waiting for hours, trying to be supportive, and you can’t even pick up some pizzas on your way home?”

The audacity of her words—claiming they were being supportive while throwing a party in my home on the day of my husband’s funeral—would have been funny if it wasn’t so horrifying.

Dad grabbed my arm, his fingers digging into my bicep hard enough to leave marks. He shoved me against the wall with enough force that my head bounced off the plaster. A framed photo of David and the kids fell from its hook, glass shattering on the hardwood floor in an explosion of glittering shards.

“We have guests waiting and you show up empty-handed after everything we’ve done for you,” Dad snarled, his face inches from mine, his breath reeking of bourbon. “You ungrateful, selfish—”

Valerie’s laugh cut through his tirade, high and cruel. She stood up and walked over to the arrangement of funeral flowers that David’s coworkers had sent—a beautiful display of white lilies and roses. She looked directly at me as she kicked the vase hard. It tipped over, water and flowers scattering across the floor, petals crushing under her designer boots.

“Told you she’d mess it up,” Valerie said, grinding a lily into the floor with her heel. “She can’t do anything right. Never could.”

I looked at the three of them—at my father still gripping my arm, at my mother’s hand raised for another slap, at my sister’s smirk. Then I looked at the strangers in my home, the ones who had gone quiet, their party atmosphere evaporated into uncomfortable silence. Some of them wouldn’t meet my eyes.

“Get out,” I repeated, softer this time. Deadly calm.

“Or what?” Valerie crossed her arms, her smirk widening. “You’ll call the cops on your own family? Yeah, right. You don’t have the spine.”

I pulled out my phone, keeping my eyes locked on hers.

“Yes. That’s exactly what I’ll do. You have sixty seconds before I call 911 and report a home invasion and assault.”

Mom’s eyes widened with something that might have been fear or might have been rage.

“You wouldn’t dare. After everything we’ve done for you—”

“Fifty seconds.”

The strangers—the Hendersons and whoever else they’d invited to party in my home on the worst day of my life—started gathering their things immediately. They muttered apologies and excuses as they hurried toward the door, desperate to escape the situation. At least they had some sense of decency, some recognition that what was happening was deeply wrong.

Dad tightened his grip on my arm, fingers digging deeper. I’d have bruises tomorrow—ugly purple marks that would last for days. Good. I’d photograph them.

“Put the phone down. You’re being hysterical.”

“Forty seconds.”

“This is ridiculous,” Valerie snapped. “Mom, Dad, let’s just go. Let her wallow in her precious grief alone. She probably loves the attention anyway.”

But Mom wasn’t ready to back down. She’d never been good at backing down, at admitting she might be wrong. Pride was her armor and her prison.

“You owe us an apology,” Mom insisted, her voice rising. “We came here to support you through this difficult time. We’ve been trying to help, to keep things normal for the children, and this is how you repay us?”

The rewriting of reality was breathtaking. They’d come here to throw a party. They’d demanded I bring them pizza while I was at my husband’s funeral. And now they were claiming they’d been trying to help?

“Thirty seconds.”

I started dialing 9-1-1, my fingers steady on the screen.

That’s when Dad released my arm and stepped back. Something in his face changed—he’d seen this expression on me before, years ago, when I’d cut off contact for six months after they’d called David “beneath our family standards” at our wedding. They’d insulted his middle-class background, his state school education, his choice to be an engineer instead of something more prestigious.

David had handled it with grace. I’d been furious. And I’d walked away.

Dad knew I wasn’t bluffing now.

“Fine,” Mom hissed, snatching her designer purse from the couch. “We’ll leave. But don’t come crying to us when you need help with those kids. You’re on your own now. Completely alone.”

“I’ve always been on my own,” I replied, my voice steady despite my racing heart. “I just didn’t realize it until today.”

They gathered their things with exaggerated slowness, trying to maintain some shred of dignity. Valerie made a point of stepping on the scattered flowers on her way out, grinding petals into the floor. Dad grabbed the bottle of bourbon he’d opened, tucking it under his arm like it was rightfully his. Mom paused at the door, turning back for one final shot.

“You’ll regret this,” she said, her voice cold. “When you’re struggling alone with those children and no family to support you, you’ll regret pushing us away.”

“The only thing I regret,” I said clearly, “is giving you a key to my home. Leave it on the table.”

Her jaw clenched so hard I could see the muscles jumping. But she dropped the key onto the entry table with a clatter that seemed far too loud in the quiet house. Then she walked out, her heels clicking on the porch steps.

Dad followed without a word. Valerie paused at the door, opening her mouth as if to say something cruel, then seemed to think better of it. She left in silence.

The door slammed behind them hard enough to rattle the windows and knock another picture frame askew.

I stood in the sudden silence of my house, surrounded by broken glass and scattered flowers, my cheek still stinging from the slap, my arm throbbing where Dad had grabbed me. The party supplies were still set up—the bottles on David’s desk, the folding chairs, the half-empty wine glasses abandoned by the fleeing guests.

Then I remembered my children.

I ran to the car, fumbling with the door handle. Emma and Lucas were pressed against the far window, their faces pale and terrified. They’d heard the yelling. Of course they’d heard it.

“Mom, what happened?” Emma’s voice was small and scared. “We heard shouting.”

I unbuckled Lucas first, lifting him out even though he was getting too big for it. He wrapped his arms and legs around me like he used to when he was smaller, burying his face in my neck. Emma climbed out on her own, her dark eyes searching my face with an intensity that reminded me painfully of David.

“Grandma and Grandpa aren’t going to visit for a while,” I said carefully, choosing my words with precision. “Is that okay?”

Lucas nodded against my shoulder without lifting his head. Emma bit her lip, studying my face.

“Did they hurt you?” she asked. Smart girl. She’d always been perceptive, too observant for her own good sometimes.

The question hung in the air between us. I could lie, protect them from the truth. But David and I had always believed in honesty with our children, in not shielding them from reality but helping them process it.

“Yes,” I said quietly. “But they’re gone now and they won’t be coming back.”

Emma’s eyes filled with tears, but she nodded. “Good,” she whispered. “I don’t like when Grandma makes you sad.”

How long had she noticed? How many times had I thought I was hiding the hurt, only to realize my children had seen everything?

I carried Lucas inside, Emma following close behind. We stepped carefully around the broken glass and wilted flowers. Lucas lifted his head, saw the mess, and pressed closer to me.

“I’m going to clean this up,” I told them, setting Lucas down on the stairs. “You two go upstairs and change into comfortable clothes. We’re going to order actual pizza—the kind we like—and watch movies in the living room tonight.”

“Can we watch Dad’s favorite?” Lucas asked in a small voice, his eyes hopeful and heartbroken at the same time.

My throat tightened. David’s favorite movie was a terrible action film from the ’90s with impossible stunts and cheesy one-liners. We’d watched it together dozens of times, David doing all the voices, making the kids laugh until their stomachs hurt.

“Yes, baby. We can watch Dad’s favorite.”

After they went upstairs, I stood in my destroyed living room and looked at the mess. Then I got to work.

The broken glass went into the trash, each shard collected carefully. The flowers I tried to salvage, arranging them in a large pitcher since the vase was destroyed. Some of the petals were too crushed, ground into the floor by Valerie’s boots, but I saved what I could. I wiped up the water, moved the furniture back to where David and I had arranged it, removed the folding chairs and the bottles from his desk.

By the time I was done, the house looked almost normal again. Almost like the party had never happened, like my parents hadn’t just assaulted me in my own home on the day I buried my husband.

But everything had changed.

That night, after the kids were asleep and the terrible action movie had played to its ridiculous conclusion, I sat in the quiet darkness of my living room and cried. Not the numb, empty tears I’d shed for weeks. These were hot, angry tears—tears of rage and betrayal and a grief that had nothing to do with David’s death and everything to do with the parents I’d never really had.

I cried for the mother who’d slapped me while I was grieving. For the father who’d shoved me against a wall because I didn’t bring pizza. For the sister who’d laughed and destroyed the funeral flowers. I cried for every time I’d made excuses for them, every time I’d convinced myself they loved me in their own way, every time I’d ignored the truth that was staring me in the face.

And then I dried my tears, took photos of the bruises forming on my arm, the red mark still visible on my cheek, the broken picture frame, the crushed flowers. I documented everything with the methodical precision David had taught me—wide shots, close-ups, timestamps.

Evidence. Just in case.

Then I called my attorney.

Patricia Lewis had handled David’s will and our estate planning. She was sharp, professional, and didn’t waste time with platitudes. When I explained what had happened, her sharp intakes of breath were the only indication of her reaction.

“I want a restraining order against all three of them,” I said when I finished recounting the events. “And I need to know what legal protections I can put in place for my children.”

“Done,” Patricia said immediately, her voice crisp with determination. “I’ll have the paperwork filed by end of day. Do you have documentation of the assault?”

“Photos. And if the security system I haven’t installed yet had been working, I’d have video too.”

“Get that system installed tomorrow. I’ll send you recommendations. Did anyone else witness what happened?”

“Yes. They’d invited guests—people I don’t know. Six or seven of them. They all left when I threatened to call the police, but they saw everything.”

“Get me names if you can. We might need witness statements.” Patricia paused. “How are you holding up?”

The question surprised me. Patricia wasn’t usually one for emotional check-ins.

“I’m angry,” I said honestly. “And tired. And done.”

“Good. Angry is good right now. It means you’re ready to protect yourself and your children. That’s exactly what we need.”

The restraining order was approved within forty-eight hours. Patricia had included detailed accounts of the home invasion, the physical assault, the destruction of property, and the pattern of emotional abuse. She’d also attached my documentation—the photos, the text messages from the funeral, everything. The judge hadn’t hesitated.

“Your Honor was particularly disturbed by the funeral texts,” Patricia told me when she called with the news. “She has grandchildren of her own. The idea of someone texting demands for pizza during a funeral was apparently the detail that sealed it.”

I felt a grim satisfaction at that.

The second week after the restraining order was filed, David’s best friend Tyler came by with groceries. He’d been doing this every Sunday since the funeral, showing up with bags of food and refusing to take no for an answer.

“You need to eat,” he’d say simply, unpacking healthy meals he’d either cooked or picked up from somewhere. “David would kill me if I let you survive on coffee and crackers.”

Tyler had been David’s college roommate, his best man at our wedding, and the closest thing to a brother he’d ever had. He was a single father himself, raising his ten-year-old daughter Mia after his wife had left them three years ago. He understood grief and single parenting in ways most people didn’t.

That particular Sunday, he brought Emma and Lucas ice cream and sat with them at the kitchen table while I put away groceries. I could hear him talking to them about their father, sharing funny stories from their college days. The kids laughed for the first time in weeks—real laughter, not the forced kind—and the sound made my chest ache.

Mom tried calling seventeen times that day. Every call went straight to voicemail since I’d already blocked her number. Valerie sent a barrage of texts from different numbers, calling me every name she could think of and more creative combinations I had to admit were impressively vicious. I forwarded everything to Patricia and blocked each new number as it appeared.

Life slowly, painfully, began to establish a new rhythm. Emma started seeing a grief counselor, Dr. Morrison, a gentle woman who specialized in helping children process loss. Lucas joined an art therapy group at the community center, where he could express his feelings through drawing and painting. I went back to work part-time at the architecture firm where I’d been employed for eight years, grateful for a boss who understood and allowed me flexible hours.

We were surviving. Some days that was enough.

The letter arrived three weeks later. No return address, but I recognized my mother’s handwriting on the envelope immediately. My hands shook as I opened it at work.

Four pages. Single-spaced. Filled with recriminations and venom that took my breath away.

I read how I’d always been ungrateful, difficult, dramatic. How I’d destroyed the family over a simple misunderstanding. How I was keeping her grandchildren from her out of spite. How David had never been good enough for me anyway, and—this line made me read it three times to make sure I wasn’t imagining it—maybe his death was a blessing in disguise because now I could find someone from a better background.

A blessing in disguise. My husband’s death. The father of my children.

My colleague Jennifer found me in the break room, tears streaming down my face, staring at the letter like it might spontaneously combust. She didn’t ask questions. She just took the letter from my hands, read it, and immediately walked me to our boss’s office.

“Margaret, she needs the rest of the day,” Jennifer said firmly. “And I’m taking her home.”

I tried to protest, but Margaret—who’d been my supervisor for years and had attended David’s funeral—took one look at my face and nodded.

“Take the rest of the week if you need it.”

Jennifer drove me home in silence, came inside, made me tea I couldn’t drink, and sat with me until the kids got home from school. Only then did she speak.

“My mom was like that,” she said quietly, staring into her own untouched cup of tea. “Different circumstances, but the same poison. She told me my miscarriage was punishment from God for not being a better daughter.” She looked up, meeting my eyes. “Some people are just broken in ways we can’t fix. And we’re not required to keep trying.”

After she left, I took my mother’s letter outside to the fire pit David had built in our backyard last summer. He’d been so proud of it, stacking the stones himself, creating a perfect circle for family gatherings and s’mores with the kids.

I lit the letter on fire and watched it burn.

The pages curled and blackened, my mother’s hateful words disappearing into ash and smoke. I stayed until every trace was gone, until there was nothing left but gray dust that scattered in the wind.

Then I went inside, helped Lucas with his math homework, listened to Emma practice her clarinet (badly, but enthusiastically), and made dinner. We were building a new normal, one small moment at a time.

The months passed. Fall turned to winter. The grief remained, but it changed shape—less sharp, more like a constant ache I learned to carry. Emma and Lucas both made progress in their therapy. I learned to sleep again, though David’s side of the bed still felt too empty.

Valerie called on New Year’s Eve, drunk and crying.

“You destroyed our family,” she slurred. “Everything fell apart because of you.”

I should have hung up immediately. Instead, I asked, “How’s that working out for you?”

She started sobbing harder. “I had the baby. A girl. Did you know that? Mom and Dad won’t even come see her. They said I’m a traitor because I told the truth to the judge about what happened that day. They won’t talk to me anymore.”

I hadn’t known about any letter to the judge. “You wrote to the judge?”

“I told them what really happened. How awful we were. How you didn’t deserve any of it.” Her words tumbled out between sobs. “I wasn’t brave enough to show up in person, but I at least told the truth in writing. And now my own parents hate me too.”

Something in my chest softened slightly.

“What’s her name? Your daughter?”

“Clare,” Valerie whispered. “After David’s mother. I thought… I don’t know what I thought.”

That touched me more than I expected. Joan was a wonderful woman who’d shown me more motherly love in the months since David’s death than my own mother had in a lifetime.

“Valerie, I need you to know something,” I said carefully. “I don’t forgive you for what you did. Not yet. Maybe not ever. But I hope you can be better for your daughter than our parents were for us.”

“Can I ever see them?” she asked. “Emma and Lucas? Can Clare know her cousins?”

“Not now. Maybe someday, if you prove through actions that you’ve changed. But not now.”

“That’s more than I deserve.”

“Probably,” I agreed. “But everyone deserves a chance to be better. Don’t waste yours.”

I hung up and sat in the quiet house, listening to my children’s soft breathing from upstairs. Outside, fireworks began going off as midnight approached—explosions of light celebrating a new year, new beginnings.

David was gone. That would never stop hurting. But his children were safe and loved. And I had finally learned the most important lesson: sometimes protecting the people you love means cutting away the ones who hurt you, even when they’re family. Especially when they’re family.

As the clock struck midnight, I raised a glass of wine to the photo of David on the mantel.

“We made it through the first year,” I whispered. “Your babies are okay. I’m okay. We’re going to be okay.”

And somewhere, somehow, I believed he heard me.

THE END