“Chastin,” Jeremy said. “I love it.”

“And Harper,” I said. “Chastin and Harper.”

They were two of the names he had sent me. I liked them okay. I chose them because he mentioned them both more than once, so I gathered they were at the top of his list. Maybe if he could see how much I was trying to love him, he wouldn’t notice the two areas in which my love lacked.

Chastin started to cry. She was wriggling in my arms, and I wasn’t sure what to do about that. I started bouncing her, but that hurt, so I stopped. Her cries continued to grow louder.

“She might be hungry,” Jeremy suggested.

I was so sold on the thought of them not actually surviving their birth with all I had put them through, what I would do beyond that wasn’t given much thought. I knew breastfeeding them would be the best choice, but I had absolutely no desire to do that kind of damage to my breasts. Especially since there were two of them.

“Sounds like someone is hungry,” a nurse said as she pranced into the room. “Are you breastfeeding?”

“No,” I said immediately. I wanted her to prance right back out of there.

Jeremy looked at me, concerned. “Are you sure?”

“There are two of them,” I replied.

I didn’t like the look on Jeremy’s face—like he was disappointed in me. I hated to think this was how it was going to be. Him taking their side. Me not mattering anymore.

“It’s not any more difficult than bottle-feeding them,” Prancing Nurse said. “It’s actually more convenient. Do you want to try it? See how it goes?”

I couldn’t take my eyes off Jeremy as I waited for him to dismiss me of that kind of torture. It killed me to know that he wanted me to breastfeed them when there were so many other perfectly adequate alternatives. But I nodded and pulled the sleeve of my gown down because I wanted to please him. I wanted him to be happy that I was the mother of his children, even though I wasn’t happy about it.

I removed my breast and brought Chastin toward my nipple. Jeremy was watching the whole thing. He saw her latch on to my nipple. He saw her head move back and forth, her little hand press into my skin. He watched her begin to suck.

It felt wrong.

This infant, sucking on something Jeremy had sucked on before. I didn’t like it. How would he find my breasts attractive after seeing babies feed from them every day?

“Does it hurt?” Jeremy asked.

“Not really.”

He put a hand on my head and brushed back my hair. “You look like you’re in pain.”

Not in pain. Just disgusted.

I watched as Chastin continued to feed from me. My stomach clenched as I tried my hardest not to show him how repulsed I was. I’m sure some mothers found this beautiful. I found it disturbing.

“I can’t do it,” I whispered, my head falling back against the pillow.

Jeremy reached down and pulled Chastin from my breast. I sighed with relief when I was free of her.

“It’s fine,” Jeremy said reassuringly. “We’ll use formula.”

“Are you sure?” the nurse asked him. “She seemed to be taking to it.”

“Positive. We’ll use formula.”

The nurse conceded and said she’d grab a can of Similac as she left the room.

I smiled because my husband still supported me. He had my back. He put me first in that moment, and I reveled in it. “Thank you,” I said to him.

He kissed Chastin’s forehead and then sat down on the edge of my bed with her. He stared at her and shook his head in disbelief. “How can I already feel so protective over them, and I’ve only known them a couple of hours?”

I wanted to remind him that he’s always been protective of me, but it didn’t feel like the right moment. I almost felt as if I were intruding on something I wasn’t a part of. This father-daughter bond I was never going to be included in. He already loved them more than he had ever loved me. He was eventually going to take their side, even if I wasn’t in the wrong. This was so much worse than I had imagined it would be.

He lifted a hand to his face and wiped away a tear.

“Are you crying?”

Jeremy snapped his head in my direction, shocked at my words. I panicked. Recovered. “That came out weird,” I said. “I meant it in a good way. I love how much you love them.”

His sudden tension disappeared with my quick recovery. He looked back down at Chastin and said, “I’ve never loved anything this much. Did you think you were capable of loving someone so much?”

I rolled my eyes and thought to myself, I have loved someone this much, Jeremy. You. For four years. Thanks for noticing.

I don’t know why I’m surprised when I set the manuscript back in the drawer. The contents of the drawer rattle as I slam it shut angrily. Why am I angry? This isn’t my life or my family. I’d trolled Verity’s reviews before coming here, and in nine out of ten of them, the reviewer referenced wanting to throw their Kindles or books across the room.

I kind of want to do the same with her autobiography. I was hoping she’d have seen the light with the birth of the girls, but she didn’t. She only saw more darkness.

She seems so cold and hard, but I’m not a mother. Do a lot of mothers feel this way about their children at first? If so, they certainly aren’t honest about it. It’s probably similar to when a mother claims she doesn’t have a favorite child, but they probably do. It’s an unspoken thing between mothers. One I suppose you don’t become aware of until you are one.

Or maybe Verity just didn’t deserve to be a mother. I think about having children sometimes. I’ll be thirty-two soon and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t worry the opportunity might never present itself. But if I ever do find myself in a relationship with a man I’d want to father my child, it would be someone like Jeremy. Rather than appreciate the wonderful father he seemed to be, Verity resented him.

Jeremy’s love for his girls seemed genuine from the very beginning. It still seems genuine. And it hasn’t been that long since he lost them. I keep losing sight of that. He’s still probably moving through the stages of grief, while dealing with Verity and being there for Crew and ensuring the income they’ve gotten used to as a family doesn’t come to a complete halt. Just a fraction of what he’s been through would be too much for some people. But he’s dealing with all of it at once.

I found boxes of pictures in Verity’s office closet this week as I was rummaging through her things. I pulled a box down, but haven’t gone through the pictures yet. It seems like another invasion of privacy on my part. This family, at least Jeremy, has entrusted me to finish this series, and I keep getting sidetracked by my obsession with Verity.

But if Verity is putting so much of herself into her series, I really do need to get to know her as well as possible. This really isn’t snooping. It’s research. There you go. Justification complete.

I take the box of pictures to the kitchen table, pry open the lid, and then pull a handful of the pictures out, wondering who had them developed. People don’t really have a lot of physical pictures on hand nowadays, thanks to the invention of smartphones. But there are so many pictures of the kids in here. Someone went through the trouble of making sure every picture they took was in physical form. My bet is on Jeremy.

I pick up a picture of Chastin. A close-up. I stare at her scar for a moment. I couldn’t stop thinking about it yesterday, so I Googled to find out if attempted abortions could actually cause damage in utero.

That’s something I’ll never Google again. Sadly, a lot of babies survive the attempts and are born disfigured in much worse ways than just a small scar. Chastin was really lucky. She and Harper both were.

Well...until they weren’t.

Jeremy’s footsteps approach the stairs. I don’t try to hide the pictures, because I’m not sure he would mind that I’m down here looking at them.

When he walks into the kitchen, I smile at him and continue sorting through them. He hesitates on his way to the refrigerator, his eyes falling to the box on the table.

“I feel like getting to know her helps put me in her headspace,” I explain. “Helps with the writing.” I look away from him, down at a picture of Harper, the one who rarely smiles in pictures.