The scale of what she had thrown away, on his behalf, without his knowledge, was still expanding, and he had not yet reached the bottom of it.

Chapter 9 — I Survived Them Alone

Elena agreed, warily, to give him twenty minutes at a quiet coffee shop near her office.

She sat across from him with her hands wrapped around a paper cup, as if for warmth, and she told him the rest.

“When the second ultrasound revealed it was quadruplets,” she said, “I panicked, and I tried to find you again.

And then they were born premature, at thirty-two weeks.