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Thank you for downloading this Simon & Schuster ebook.Get a FREE ebook when you join our mailing list. Plus, get updates on new releases, deals, recommended reads, and more from Simon & Schuster. Click below to sign up and see terms and conditions.CLICK HERE TO SIGN UPAlready a subscriber? Provide your email again so we can register this ebook and send you more of what you like to read. You will continue to receive exclusive offers in your inbox. To our mothers, Tracey and Sallie.To all mothers.And to anyone who is childless by choice or circumstance. PROLOGUEDear You,I was desperate to make everything perfect when I left.If you knew how many times I rearranged the quilt around you, tucking and untucking it over and over until I could get the little yellow duck in the corner lined up just so. Even with all my planning, it all came down to this one thing, this one stupid thing, and if I could get that right, then it would mean it would all be okay.You were fast asleep so the duck didn’t make one bit of difference to you, much less the matching yellow knit cap on your teeny head, but I pulled it down until it grazed your barely there eyebrows. One last time, I let my fingers trace their soft arcs.I leaned down to sniff you, the delicious scent of newborn breath, brand-new skin, and life itself. If I inhaled deeply enough, I thought I might keep that magical smell stored inside me forever. But when I exhaled, it was gone, and that panicked me, that feeling like I couldn’t hold on to anything. So I focused on memorizing your face, every detail, even though it was already imprinted in my brain, seared in my soul. I stared down at your translucent lids, blue veins showing through like little streams, and kept debating whether I wanted you to open your eyes or not. On the one hand, to see them just one more time. On the other hand, if you did flutter them open right then and looked at me, I knew I would never be able to leave.Everyone thinks their baby is beautiful, even when they’re not. But you truly were, especially your eyes. They were these perfectly round blue pools, clear as glaciers, impossibly wide. Striking. I knew it would be your thing. All your life people would say, “Oh but those eyes.”I squirmed down on my back next to you, ignoring the grass and dirt that wormed into my ponytail. The view above you was perfect, a hashtag of leafy branches crisscrossing a patch of fluffy clouds.It was when I realized that the color of the sky at that very moment was the exact same color as your eyes that I truly lost it. It was then I knew I had to go, right that second before leaving became impossible. I bolted to my feet and slapped my cheek like I did when I was having a nightmare and I needed to wake myself up.I made it two steps down the path and then two more, before I stumbled back. I tried not to beat myself up about returning to you since I’d known it would take more than one try to tear myself away. But I also knew time was running out. Like I said, I had planned everything so carefully. For weeks and weeks. And now I was risking it all by running late and lingering there, exposed. So I took off again, distracted momentarily by the damp circles on my knees where I had kneeled beside you saying “I’m sorry, I’m sorry” over and over. This time I made it a few feet farther before I remembered. The note! I wiggled it out of the pocket of my hoodie. The card I had labored over for so many nights.Quick as I could, I tucked it under you and then darted over to the edge of the pond where I pulled out my phone and threw it as far and hard as I could into the murky water. I was gone down the path before I even heard the splash, running faster and faster, despite my sore, swollen boobs and the fire between my legs, like I was a kid again, flying top speed through the soybean fields, my long auburn hair streaking behind me like a flag. Now I was nineteen and fat and slow, but in my mind, for one split second, I was that little girl. And if I ran fast and hard enough, I could outrun my problems. Or outrun what I’d done. I was heaving by the time I made it to the bus station, sweat and tears rolling every which way. I looked almost as wrecked as I felt. I remember catching my reflection in the bathroom mirror and thinking, This is it. This is your lowest point. And there was something freeing about that, just letting myself sink to rock bottom, nowhere lower to go.Or so I thought.Turns out there’s always another millimeter. As the Greyhound bus was lumbering out of the station, I realized I forgot the most important thing. I forgot to say I love you. My body jerked with a laugh and a sob, like it was all mixed up and didn’t know what to do with this realization. Like my soul itself skipped and twitched. It was all I could do to stay in my seat when an invisible force was making my legs twitch to run up the aisle and beg the driver to turn around. It’s the same force that haunts me to this day, the one that tugs at me to reach out to you despite my promises.Most days, the good days at least, I can convince myself that you know this, how much I love you. Wherever you are, right now at this moment, you know deep in your bones that I loved you from the moment you came into