Three weeks wasn’t enough time to build a connection like this—not with children who had rejected every nanny, every specialist, every attempt at comfort since birth.
“That’s impossible,” Vanessa snapped. “These children don’t attach to anyone. Fifteen professionals have tried. Fifteen.”
Lauren closed her eyes.
She knew the truth couldn’t stay buried anymore.
The boy in the yellow tracksuit looked at her with watery blue eyes and spoke with absolute certainty.
“Mommy stayed.”
The silence that followed was suffocating.
Ethan grabbed the doorframe to steady himself.
Vanessa let out a short, hysterical laugh.
“That’s ridiculous. Their mother died giving birth. Everyone knows that. So what is this nonsense?”
Ethan wasn’t laughing.
He stared at Lauren with piercing intensity.
“Who are you?” he asked. “Really?”
Lauren tightened her arms around the boys and took a deep breath.
“My name is Lauren Silveira,” she said. “I’m Emily Silveira’s identical twin sister.”
The woman you married three years ago.
The woman you loved.
The woman who died bringing these three boys into the world.
Ethan staggered back as if punched.
“Emily had… a twin?”
Lauren nodded through tears.