She dropped the gloves and opened her arms without thinking.
Without resisting.
Without pretending this wasn’t shattering her heart.
The boys clung to her like they had finally found something they’d been searching for their entire lives.
The one in the green sweater buried his face in her shoulder, sobbing loudly as his tiny hands clenched her black uniform like it was the only solid thing left in the world.
The boy in the plaid shirt wrapped his arms around her waist and whispered the word again—softly now, like a secret he had carried too long.
“Mommy…”
The third boy, wearing a yellow tracksuit, cupped her face in his small hands and stared into her eyes with an intensity no two-year-old should have. An intensity filled with memories he couldn’t explain but felt in every cell of his body.
Ethan stood frozen.
All the color drained from his face. His hands shook as his mind struggled to process what he was seeing—what it meant for everything he thought he knew about his life, his family, and the year and a half of unbearable grief he had lived through with his sons.
“Lauren,” he said.
Her name came out like an accusation. A question. A plea.