Hearing him call someone else that word sent a strange ache through my chest.
As he crouched to pick up the broken pieces of the plate, a woman appeared behind him.
By then the shock was fading enough for me to force a smile.
“I’m sorry about the mess,” I said. “My son… if he had lived, he probably would have looked very much like your boy.”
Ryan straightened up.
“I’m really sorry for your loss,” he said kindly.
But the woman suddenly went still.
Her eyes moved from me… to her son… and then to his mismatched eyes.
Something in her expression changed.
“Thank you for stopping by,” she said quickly. “But we’re busy right now.”
Before I could say another word, she gently pushed Ryan back inside and shut the door.
I stood there for a moment, stunned.
Then I turned and hurried home.
Mark was sitting in the living room reading when I walked in.
“You’re back already?” he asked.
I sat beside him on the couch.
“The boy next door,” I said slowly.
“What about him?”
“He looks like Lucas.”
Mark closed his book but didn’t respond.
“The same hair,” I continued. “The same face. Mark… he has the same eyes. One blue, one brown. He’s nineteen.”
Mark went completely still.
In all our years of marriage, I had never seen his face look the way it did then.
“I thought,” he whispered, “I thought this was buried.”
“What does that mean?”
He covered his face with both hands.
“I thought I buried this secret with our son,” he said quietly.
My heart started racing.
“What secret?”
He looked up, his eyes red.
“It’s not exactly about Lucas.”
A cold feeling spread through my chest.
“Mark… what did you do?”
He took a shaky breath.
“When Lucas was born… there were two babies.”
I stared at him.
“Two?”
“Twins,” he said.
I felt the room spin.
“You never told me that.”
“You were unconscious after the delivery,” he explained. “You lost a lot of blood. Lucas was healthy, but the other baby wasn’t breathing properly. They rushed him to intensive care.”
My mind struggled to process his words.
“The hospital social worker talked to me about a placement program,” he continued. “For babies with almost no chance of surviving.”
“And you agreed?”
“I signed paperwork. I wasn’t thinking clearly. You were in danger, the baby was critical… everything happened so fast.”
I felt my hands shaking.
“What happened next?”
“A week later they called me,” he said quietly. “The baby was still alive.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me?”