That sentence hit me like a fist.
I finally managed to speak. “How? Why? Who are you?”
Thomas adjusted Destiny’s blanket so I could see her face clearly. She slept peacefully, impossibly small, her mouth slightly open like she was still learning how to exist in air.
“I volunteer at County General,” Thomas said. “I sit with patients who are dying and alone. I hold their hands so they do not leave this world without someone beside them.”
He took a breath, and his voice shook slightly when he said Ellie’s name.
“Ellie was alone,” he continued. “Her family would not come. You were not allowed to. The volunteer coordinator called me. I arrived two hours before she passed.”
My hand pressed to the glass without thinking.
“Was she terrified?” I asked.
Thomas swallowed hard. “She was worried about the baby,” he said softly. “And about you. She didn’t talk about herself. She talked about you. She kept saying your name like it was a prayer.”
My chest cracked.
Thomas looked down at Destiny again.
“She made me promise to keep her daughter out of foster care,” he said. “She said she knew what the system had done to you. She begged me not to let it happen to Destiny.”
I stared at him, my brain refusing to accept the shape of what he was saying.
“You promised a dying woman you would raise her child?” I whispered.
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