Lena silently took the coffee pot from my hand.
I pointed to the back booth. “Sit down.”
He sat like a man waiting for judgment.
I slid into the seat across from him. Hope stirred beside me.
“Start talking.”
His eyes filled instantly. He had to look down.
“She wanted to come home so many times.”
I gripped the table. “Then why didn’t she?”
“Because of your husband,” he said quietly. “After she called him, she cried for hours. He told her if she came back with me, she’d be throwing her life away. He said if she loved you, she’d stay gone and let you move on.”
I closed my eyes.
Andy continued. “I told her maybe he was bluffing. She said he wasn’t.”
“What happened to my daughter, Andy?”
He broke then—just for a second. One hand over his mouth, shoulders shaking—before he pulled himself together.
“Hope was born three weeks ago,” he said. “Jennifer had a bleed after delivery. They said they stopped it. They said she was okay… but she wasn’t.”
I couldn’t feel my feet.
“Before she…” he swallowed, “before the end, she told me if anything ever happened, Hope was to come to you. She made me promise.”
