“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.”