“I rushed to the hospital,” I sob out, “calling my mother along the way, and she rushed there. When I got to the hospital, they put me in the bed, and I lay there while all this blood poured out of me. I tried to stop it, tried to close my legs, thinking it would stop it. In almost the same room that I listened to our son’s heartbeat, I was told there was no more heartbeat.” He roars out a sob and falls to his knees in front of me, and I want to do the same. “These things happen, they told me. I was in a state of shock by the time my mother got there. Catatonic almost, but it wasn’t over. I had to deliver our child. He was perfect.” I sob. “He was the most beautiful baby in the world. I held him for as long as they would let me. I told him that you loved him more than anything in the world. I told him that he had to be our angel now.” The crushing blow was even more now than it was on that day. “I blamed myself for everything. If I wasn’t depressed, then maybe he would have survived. If I ate more, maybe he would be okay. If I didn’t cry every day, maybe he would have known how happy I was to be his mommy.” I walk over to Jacob now who sobs with his hands covering his face. “So you don’t have just one son, you have two.”

“Kallie,” he says, and I walk closer to him. He grabs my hips and puts his face to my stomach and kisses it. “I’m so sorry.”

My hand goes into his hair, like I always do, my own tears falling and mixing with his. “I named him Gabriel.” The sob rips through him now, and I hold Jacob in my arms as he cries for our child.

“I’m so sorry.” He keeps saying that over and over again, and I look at him.

“I’m sorry for doubting you, and I’m sorry that I ran from you.” I lean in and put my forehead against his. “I was just so devastated that the only thing I could do was run.”

He’s about to say something else when the front door opens, and all we hear is screaming. “Dad, I’m home!” His eyes fly to mine, and then it happens in slow motion.

“Dad?” We hear again, and Ethan comes into the room with a huge smile on his face that falls when he sees me with his father. Or it falls because he sees his father in tears.