And after that I was living in a nightmare I did not have the strength to also fight you through, caught between the NICU, and the medical bills, and four separate incubators, and trying to keep an emerging business alive so I could feed them all.

I stopped calling, Alex.

I did.

Because every closed door, every unreturned message, every wall of silence, told me the same thing, over and over: you did not care.

And I could not keep throwing myself against that wall while four babies needed me.”

“My mother,” Alex said, his face pale, “intercepted every single attempt.

You weren’t hitting a wall of my indifference.

You were hitting a wall she built.” “That explains why you never answered,” Elena said softly, and there was no forgiveness in it, only accuracy.