Eleanor's POV
The drive home from the hospital was surreal. After three years of waiting, after four miscarriages and countless tears, we finally had our baby. I couldn't stop staring at her, this perfect little miracle asleep in her car seat. Emma. Even her name felt like a gift.
"Do you want me to turn the heat up?" Robert asked, his eyes flicking between the road and the rearview mirror, where he could see me in the backseat next to Emma. "Is she warm enough?"
"She's perfect," I said, adjusting the soft yellow blanket around her tiny body. "Everything is perfect."
But it wasn't, not really. The shadows under Robert's eyes told a different story. The way his knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. The forced brightness in his voice. He was worried, about money, about responsibility, about whether we were ready. I knew all his fears because they were mine too, buried beneath the overwhelming joy.
We'd been in that sterile hospital room for less than an hour, but the memory of it would stay with me forever. The devastation on the birth mother's face as she handed Emma to me. The way her husband, Michael, I think his name was, had stood so rigidly beside her, as if the slightest movement might shatter him completely. They were so young, barely into their twenties. Too young to be making such an impossible choice.
"Thank you for this precious gift," I'd said, the words inadequate even as they left my mouth. What do you say to someone who's giving you the one thing you've wanted most in the world, at the cost of their own happiness?
Emma stirred in her car seat, her tiny face scrunching up before relaxing back into sleep. She had dark wisps of hair and skin so new it was almost translucent. Her eyelashes lay like delicate brushstrokes against her cheeks. I couldn't stop looking at her, memorizing every detail.
"We're almost home," Robert said, turning onto our street. The modest houses with their small yards looked different somehow, more vibrant, more alive. Our home, the one we'd bought five years ago thinking we'd fill it with children, would finally have a baby's laughter in it.
Robert pulled into our driveway and cut the engine. For a moment, neither of us moved. This was it. The moment we'd been dreaming of for years. The start of our life as a family.
"Ready?" Robert asked, a small smile finally breaking through his worried expression.
I nodded, unable to speak past the lump in my throat. We were ready. We had to be.
Robert came around to help me out, then carefully lifted the car seat with Emma inside. I couldn't help but notice how natural he looked, how his large hands cradled the seat with such gentleness. He would be a wonderful father. I'd always known that.
Our neighbor, Mrs. Martinez, was watering her flowers as we made our way to the front door. Her eyes widened when she saw us.
"Is that…?" she called out, her face lighting up.
"It's our daughter," Robert answered, pride evident in his voice despite his anxieties. "Emma Phillips."
Mrs. Martinez hurried over, cooing and exclaiming over Emma's perfection. I stood back, watching as Robert beamed, momentarily forgetting his worries as he accepted congratulations on behalf of our new family.
I should have been right there with him, soaking in this moment we'd waited so long for. Instead, I found myself thinking about Emma's birth mother. Sarah. Had anyone congratulated her when she left the hospital, her arms achingly empty? Was anyone bringing her casseroles or offering to help with laundry while she recovered from childbirth?
The thought sent a pang of guilt through me so sharp it took my breath away. I pushed it aside as Robert finally extricated himself from Mrs. Martinez and we made our way inside.
Our house was small but tidy, painted in warm neutrals with photos of our families lining the hallway. I'd spent weeks preparing the nursery, painting the walls a soft green that would grow with her, assembling the crib my father had made by hand, washing and folding tiny clothes donated by friends and family. Everything was ready. Everything except maybe me.
"Welcome home, Emma," Robert said softly as he set the car seat down in the living room. He knelt beside it, carefully unbuckling our daughter, our daughter, and lifting her into his arms.
The sight of my husband holding our baby girl made my eyes fill with tears. Robert looked up, alarmed.
"What's wrong? Are you okay?"
I nodded, wiping at my eyes. "I'm just happy. And overwhelmed. And a little scared."
His expression softened with understanding. "Me too. On all counts."
I went to them, wrapping my arms around both Robert and Emma, forming our first family hug. Emma squirmed between us, making little noises that weren't quite cries but definitely not contentment either.
"I think she might be hungry," I said, surprised by how naturally the observation came. I'd read so many books about infant care, so many articles, attended so many classes, but none of that compared to actually holding your child and somehow knowing what she needed.
"I'll warm a bottle," Robert offered, carefully transferring Emma to my arms.
I settled on the couch, marveling at how light she was, how fragile she seemed. Her eyes opened briefly, dark blue, like most newborns, and I wondered if they would stay that color or change. I wondered what other features she'd inherited from her biological parents. If her smile would be like Sarah's, or if she'd have Michael's serious expression.
"Here we go," Robert said, returning with a bottle of formula. The adoption agency had provided us with the brand the birth mother had been using at the hospital, to make the transition easier.
I took the bottle and offered it to Emma, who latched on immediately, sucking with surprising strength for someone so tiny. As I fed her, I couldn't help but think of Sarah again. Was she breastfeeding Emma's twin? Or had she chosen formula too?
The social worker had told us about the twin, of course. They had to. But the information had come with a warning: "The birth parents have requested a closed adoption. They don't want updates or photos. They believe a clean break is best for everyone."
A clean break. As if you could sever that connection so easily. As if Emma wouldn't someday have questions about the twin sister she might never know.
"What are you thinking about?" Robert asked, settling beside me on the couch.
"Nothing," I lied, then immediately corrected myself. We'd promised never to lie to each other, not even about small things. "About her birth parents. About her twin."
Robert's expression grew serious. "Eleanor, we talked about this. The adoption agency was very clear. This is a closed adoption. The birth parents don't want contact."
"I know that," I said, perhaps a bit too sharply. Emma startled at my tone, and I quickly lowered my voice. "I know. I just... I can't stop thinking about them. About why they kept one twin but gave up the other. What will we tell Emma when she's old enough to ask?"
Robert ran a hand through his hair, a nervous habit I'd grown to love over our twelve years together. "The truth, I guess. That they were young and struggling financially. That they couldn't care for two babies. That they loved her enough to give her to us."
It was the story we'd agreed upon, the one recommended by all the adoption books and counselors. The positive spin. The narrative that would hopefully minimize Emma's feelings of rejection or abandonment.
But as I looked down at this perfect baby in my arms, I couldn't help but wonder if any explanation would ever be enough. How do you tell a child that her parents kept her sister but gave her away? How do you explain that kind of choice?
"We don't have to figure it all out today," Robert said gently, reading my thoughts as he often did. "We have years before she's old enough to understand."
I nodded, refocusing on the present. On Emma finishing her bottle, on the way her eyelids were growing heavy again, on the overwhelming love I felt for this child who had been ours for less than six hours.
"Do you want to burp her?" I asked Robert, knowing he was eager to participate in every aspect of caring for Emma.
He nodded, his eyes lighting up as I handed him our daughter and the burp cloth. He positioned her against his shoulder with a confidence that belied his inner anxiety, patting her back with a gentle rhythm until she produced a surprisingly loud burp for such a tiny being.
"That's my girl," he said proudly, and something in my chest tightened at the easy way he claimed her. My husband, who had held me through each miscarriage, who had been so hesitant about adoption at first, worried about the cost and the uncertainty and the potential heartbreak. Now he was transformed, besotted with this little person who had come into our lives so suddenly.
The first night was a blur of feedings and diaper changes, of whispered consultations and double-checking the baby monitor. Emma slept in the bassinet beside our bed, and I found myself waking even when she wasn't crying, just to make sure she was still breathing, still real.
Around 3 AM, during one of these wakeful moments, I slipped out of bed, careful not to disturb Robert who had finally fallen into an exhausted sleep. I went to the small office we'd converted into a storage room, to the filing cabinet where I kept important documents.
With trembling hands, I unlocked the bottom drawer and took out the manila envelope the adoption agency had given us. Inside was Emma's original birth certificate, listing Sarah and Michael Reynolds as her biological parents. There was also the letter they had written for Emma, to be given to her when she was older, if she ever wanted to know about her origins.
The adoption agency had suggested we put these documents in their safe deposit box for safekeeping. "Many adoptive parents find it easier not to have these reminders in their home," the social worker had explained.
But I couldn't bear to part with them. They were part of Emma's story, part of who she was. I had compromised by keeping them locked away, out of sight but never truly out of mind.
I carefully opened the letter, though I'd already read it a dozen times. The handwriting was neat but rushed, as if written under great emotional strain.
"Dear Emma," it began. "By the time you read this, you will be old enough to understand that the circumstances of your birth were complicated. We want you to know that giving you up was the hardest decision we ever made..."
Tears blurred my vision as I read their explanation of poverty, of desperation, of impossible choices. They wrote of their love for her, their hopes for her future, their wish that she would understand and forgive them someday.
At the bottom of the letter was a photograph, the only one we had of Emma with her biological family. Sarah holding her, Michael standing protectively beside them, and, this was the detail that always caught in my throat, the other twin, Olivia, cradled in Michael's arms.
They looked so young, so devastated, yet determined to smile for this one photograph that might someday show their daughter they had loved her. That letting her go had broken their hearts.
I heard a sound from the bedroom and quickly refolded the letter, slipping it and the birth certificate back into the envelope. I'd promised Robert I wouldn't obsess over Emma's biological family, that I wouldn't let their shadow hang over our joy.
But as I made my way back to bed, I couldn't help but feel their presence. Not as a threat, but as a reality. Emma would always have two families, whether she knew it or not. Two sets of parents who loved her. Two different lives that could have been.
Robert was sitting up in bed when I returned, Emma fussing quietly in his arms.
"She was starting to stir," he explained. "I thought I'd get her before she fully woke up."
I nodded, slipping back under the covers and reaching for her. "I'll feed her."
As I settled Emma against me with her bottle, Robert studied my face in the dim light from the bedside lamp.
"You were looking at her documents again, weren't you?" he asked, his voice carefully neutral.
I couldn't lie to him. "Yes."
He sighed, running a hand over his face. "Eleanor, we talked about this. We agreed. Clean break, remember? It's what they wanted."
"I know," I said quietly, watching Emma's tiny hands curling against the bottle. "But it feels wrong, somehow. To pretend they don't exist. That she doesn't have a sister out there somewhere."
Robert was quiet for a long moment, and I braced myself for his frustration. For the argument we'd had several times during the adoption process. But when he spoke, his voice was gentle.
"I understand," he said. "I do. But we have to respect their wishes. And we have to protect Emma. What if we reached out and they rejected her again? What if they didn't want to know her? That would hurt her even more than never knowing."
He was right, of course. The social worker had been very clear about the birth parents' wishes. No contact. No updates. A clean break.
But as Emma finished her bottle and I held her against my shoulder, patting her back gently, I couldn't help but feel there was something fundamentally wrong about separating twins. About one sister growing up never knowing the other existed. About the secrets we would have to keep.
"Let's just focus on the present," Robert suggested, seeing my turmoil. "On giving Emma the best life we can. On being the best parents possible."
I nodded, letting him take Emma from me as I lay back down. He was right. We couldn't change how Emma had come to us. We could only move forward, loving her with our whole hearts, preparing for the day when she might have questions we couldn't fully answer.
Robert placed Emma back in her bassinet and returned to bed, pulling me close against him. "She's ours now," he whispered into my hair. "Our daughter. Our miracle."
"Our miracle," I echoed, closing my eyes and trying to let that truth be enough.
But even as exhaustion pulled me toward sleep, I couldn't help thinking about Sarah Reynolds, wondering if she was awake too, holding Olivia and thinking about the daughter she had given away. Wondering if, like me, she felt both blessed and haunted by the impossible choice that had brought us together across an unbridgeable divide.