Kim looked at her hands. “When I got pregnant with Lily, I was terrified. I didn’t know how to be a mother. I still don’t. Every day I look at her and wonder why on earth anyone would see it fit to make her mine. I’m no kind of mother, Gabe. I couldn’t even breastfeed her when she was born. I couldn’t get her to stop crying when she had colic. I was utterly useless in her life and I still am. The only person she needs is you and she has you. There’s no room for me.”

“That’s not true.”

“Yes, it is. I’m a terrible mother. Worse, I’m my own mother’s daughter.” The words were bile on her tongue but they were the truth.

“You are nothing like Gloria,” Gabriel replied sharply. “That woman should never have had children. Though I’m obviously glad she did.”

She couldn’t smile at the attempt at levity. “Maybe I shouldn’t have either.”

His face became still. “What do you mean?”

“I mean I didn’t really want Lily, Gabe. The same way my mother didn’t want me,” Kim said slowly, as if each word was a tooth being extracted. “Look at me. What good am I as her mother? She doesn’t even need me.”

She was crying now and she didn’t even know when it started. She felt so terrible inside but she couldn’t stop now. She had to say it all.

“I never wanted to be a mother,” she admitted. “But you wanted a child so much...”

Gabriel’s lashes fluttered as his gaze turned away from her.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “But it’s the truth. I didn’t want to be pregnant. I just wanted it to be you and me, and then suddenly there was another person in the mix and I didn’t know what to do about it. I wasn’t prepared. I tried to be happy, but all I felt was fear. I had no reference to what it was to be a good mother. I had nothing to measure myself by except the fake happy families I saw on television. Then after Lily was born I felt even worse. Nothing I did was right for her. Even now I can’t seem to get anything right. I’m a failure.”

“You don’t think you get things right?” Gabriel replied sharply. “But you have to try to get them right, Kim. And you haven’t done that.”

“I know,” she said sadly as she hung her head. He was angry. She knew he would be. She deserved his scorn.