“Who did you hear talking, honey?” I asked, rubbing the back of his neck to give him whatever comfort I had left.

“Dad and Grandma were sitting at the kitchen table the night Mason wouldn’t stop screaming and you went in the laundry room to cry,” he confessed.

I remembered that awful night clearly, when my milk wouldn’t come in properly and I’d slumped against the washing machine feeling like a complete failure as a mother.

“What did Grandma say while you were listening on the stairs, Austin?” I asked, bracing myself for whatever cruelty was about to come.

“Grandma told Dad that now you finally had two real babies of your own to worry about,” Austin whispered, his hazel eyes brimming with fresh tears.