The first photograph showed a much younger Emily, no older than eighteen, standing in front of a dilapidated wooden house in West Virginia. Beside her were three small children—two boys and a little girl—clinging to her skirt, their faces thin, their eyes too old for their age.
Nathan’s breath caught. “They’re… not yours?”
Emily shook her head slowly. Tears spilled down her cheeks.
“They were my sister’s.”
She flipped to the next page.
Another photograph: a hospital bed. A frail woman lay there, tubes everywhere, her skin pale as paper. Emily was beside her, gripping her hand with both of hers, eyes red from crying.
“My older sister, Rachel Carter,” Emily said. “She was abandoned by her husband when she got pregnant with her first child. She worked in a factory. Long hours. Low pay. Then she met another man… then another. She wasn’t careless—she was desperate. Every man promised help. Every man disappeared.”
Nathan clenched his fists. He felt his chest tighten.
“She died giving birth to the third child,” Emily continued. “Postpartum hemorrhage. We were poor. The nearest hospital was two hours away.”
Her voice broke.