Caleb stood there.
He looked wrecked. His eyes were hollow, rimmed with red. His hair, usually perfectly styled, was messy. He looked like a man who had aged ten years in seventy-two hours.
He looked at me, then at Emma, and I saw his throat bob as he swallowed.
“Lena… I made a mistake,” he whispered.
I didn’t step back. I didn’t invite him in. The twins were my world, and he was an intruder.
“No,” I said, my voice colder than I thought possible. “You made a choice.”
He flinched as ifI had struck him.
“I want to be a father,” he pleaded, reaching a hand out, though he stopped short of touching the doorframe. “Mom… Mom was wrong. I see that now. Seeing you on TV… seeing what you did… I realized I walked away from the best thing in my life.”
“You realized it because the world told you to,” I replied. “You realized it because you look like a monster, and you want your image back.”
