“Daniel.”

“I’m fine, Mom.”

He smiled at me, and I believed him.

Over the next few months, he grew tired more easily.

He blamed work.

Then stress.

Then preparing for twins.

I accepted every explanation.

One evening, late in my pregnancy, I found him sitting alone in his car with papers on his lap.

When he saw me, he quickly folded them and pushed them into the glove compartment.

“What’s that?”

“Work stuff.”

“Since when do you work in the car?”

“Since my wife covered every table in our apartment with baby things.”

I laughed.

Again, I believed him.

Soon, Daniel stopped driving. Carol began taking us to appointments.

He joked that my stomach was so big the twins could steer the car themselves.

Even when he looked pale or needed to rest halfway through ordinary chores, he still found ways to make me laugh.

Then, three weeks before Mia and Owen were born, Daniel died.

Everything changed instantly.

One day, his shoes were beside the door and his jacket hung over a chair.

The next, I was preparing to give birth without him.

Mia and Owen never met their father.

Carol moved into our spare room and stayed after they were born.

She handled late-night bottles, laundry, meals, and the moments when grief suddenly crushed me.

For an entire year, she helped me survive.

And all that time, she was keeping one enormous secret.

PART 2

By the twins’ first birthday, I had learned how to function around the grief.

I planned a small party at home with balloons, cake, relatives, friends, and neighbors.

Mia and Owen covered themselves in frosting while everyone laughed.

For a while, it felt like a normal first birthday.

But every celebration after Daniel’s death contained another version in my imagination.

The version where he was still there.

After the guests left, I started cleaning.

Carol stopped me.

“I need to get something.”

She went outside and returned carrying a large box.

The moment I saw the handwriting on the lid, I froze.

**For my family. Open on their first birthday.**

Daniel.

Carol placed the box on the table.

“He gave this to me the week he stopped driving,” she said. “He made me promise not to give it to you early.”

I reached for the latch.

Carol stopped me.

“Bianca, sit down first.”

Her expression frightened me.

“What is this?”

She lowered herself into a chair.

Then she told me the truth.

Daniel had known he was seriously ill.

The papers I had seen in his car weren’t work documents.

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