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.
They were medical results.
He had known before the twins were born.
I stared at Carol.
“You knew?”
She nodded.
“When?”
“March.”
My chair scraped against the floor as I stood.
“You knew all that time?”
“He asked me not to tell you.”
My anger came instantly.
“I was his wife!”
“I know.”
“I deserved to know!”
“I know.”
Carol didn’t defend herself.
She explained that Daniel had met her at a diner after receiving his results.
He made her promise not to tell me.
“He said you deserved those months to be happy about the babies without spending every day afraid of losing him.”
My hands shook.
“He had no right to decide that.”
“You’re right.”
“And neither did you.”
“You’re right.”
That answer stopped me.
Carol wasn’t asking to be forgiven.
She was simply admitting what she had done.
I looked back at the box.
However angry I was, I needed to know what Daniel had left behind.
I opened it.
Inside were two smaller boxes and an envelope with my name.
The first box contained Daniel’s watch.
A note read:
**For our son.**
The second held a necklace that had belonged to his grandmother.
**For our daughter.**
Beneath them were twelve sealed envelopes.
I picked them up one by one.
**For your first day of school.**
**For when you turn sixteen.**
**For graduation.**
**For the day you fall in love.**
Then I found the envelope that broke me.
**For the day you need your dad and I’m not there.**
I bent over the table and cried.
Daniel had known he might never see any of those days.
While I had been decorating the nursery and complaining about swollen ankles, he had been preparing pieces of himself for a future he knew he might never share.
PART 3
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