I asked her the same question different ways over two years, hoping for a different answer.
It never came. I’d wanted a daughter since I was nineteen. I even had her name picked out.
Owen kept a box of baby girl clothes in our garage long after we should’ve given it away.
Every time I mentioned donating it, he’d say, “Let’s wait one more month.”
Eventually we both just stopped talking about it entirely. “Our boys need their mother more than we need a daughter,” he told me the last time I brought it up.
I believed him. I let that dream go completely. Then, eleven years into our marriage, I walked into a hospital hallway and found my husband standing there, coat still on, eyes red in a way I’d never once seen from him.
