I sat on the nursery floor where Maya had been. For the first time, I saw my sons not as problems to fix, but as living pieces of the woman I loved.
“How did you know the song?” I asked.
Maya rested her hand on Lucas’s head. He was asleep. Peaceful.
“I sang it to them every night at the hospital,” she whispered. “Isabella said as long as they heard it, they’d know she was still watching. I didn’t want the song to end.”
That’s when I understood how poor I’d been. I built walls of glass and surveillance but forgot to build a home held together by love.
I didn’t fire Maya.
I appointed her director of the Isabella Hawthorne Foundation, a nonprofit we created to protect children from family exploitation.
And every night, before the twins fall asleep, we sit together in the nursery.
We no longer watch the cameras.
We just listen to the song.
