Page 18 of Absolution

“I thought if I could just pretend everything was okay, then maybe it would be,” he goes on. “That if I kept showing up, doing the things, I could still be the guy you married.”

Kyle lifts his head. Even in the dark, I can feel his eyes on me. “But I wasn’t,” he says, voice rough. “I haven’t been.”

I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. My hand rests on my belly, still slightly swollen, stitched together beneath the gown. The doctors said the swelling will take time to go down, that the muscles will settle, but what they didn’t say is how empty it would feel. How quiet.

There’s no uterus beneath my skin anymore. Just space. Just loss. Another thing they never prepare you for. They talk about saving your life like it’s enough. Like surviving should cancel out the grief of everything you lost along the way.

It’s not all black and white. People disappoint you. They break your heart. They abandon you when you’re at your weakest. So, what then? Do you stay? Or do you leave?

I don’t know. Not yet. But I know this: pain doesn’t always mean something is over. And love doesn’t always mean you forget. Sometimes it just means choosing to heal side by side, even when the cracks still show.

“I miss who we were,” I say, finally. “I miss… us.”

“Me too.”

He walks over to my bed. I scoot over to make space. In the next moment, he’s holding me. Everything is not okay. Our children still have a long way to go, but maybe we don’t have to go through it alone.

Hot tears roll down my cheeks as I press my face into his shoulder. Kyle’s shoulders shake, his breath coming in jagged gasps, deep and loud, like something breaking open.

For the first time since everything fell apart, we cry together. Not over what we said. Not even over what we lost. But for what we’re still trying to hold onto.

Us.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispers into my hair. “I’ll never leave again.”

I want to believe him.

Maybe I already do.

We stay like that for a long time. Wrapped in grief. In guilt. In love that’s bruised but not broken.

Two people in the dark, holding each other like we still matter.

Because we do.

Chapter Six

Kyle ~Four Weeks Later

I made a promise. That night in the hospital, with Jackie crying in my arms, I swore I’d never let her down again and I meant it.

Every day since, I’ve been trying to show her. In the NICU. At home. In the long silences and the quiet moments where she barely looks at me. I don’t blame her, don’t raise my voice.

Jackie was discharged about two weeks after the birth. She’s still sore, still healing. The babies were too small to go home then, but now, Jemma and Iris are coming with us. Today.

We’ve been at the hospital every day since. Every single one. Sleeping in shifts. Holding hands over incubators. Learning how to read the beeping machines, how to feed with syringes and tubes, how to live our life in two-hour increments.

Levi’s not ready yet. He’s our fighter, but he’s still hooked up to machines. His oxygen levels dip too often. His body still struggles to do the one thing that should come naturally, to breathe.

The paediatric doctor, Dr. Lin, asks us to step into his office while the nurse prepares the discharge paperwork for the girls.Jackie moves slowly beside me, one hand resting over her scar like it still stings when she breathes too deep.

Dr. Lin closes the door behind us. Taking a seat, he folds his hands on the table, expression serious.

“Your daughters are ready to go home,” he says gently. “They’ve gained enough weight, and their lungs have matured. They’ll still need follow-up, of course, but they’re doing very well.”

Jackie lets out a shaky breath beside me. I grab her hand.

“And Levi?” I ask.

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