PART 1
On the day my daughters turned eighteen, they placed two faded beach towels on the kitchen table and asked me not to hate them. I recognized those towels immediately. Eighteen years earlier, I had discovered Emily and Grace wrapped inside them in a beach changing cubicle—one in white, the other in pink. Now both girls stood before me with frightened expressions.
“Dad,” Emily said, taking my hand.
“We need to tell you the truth,” Grace added.
My fingers began trembling before I even touched the fabric. Suddenly, I was back on the beach where I had once believed my life was already over.
Three weeks before finding the girls, I had buried my fiancée, Sarah, and our unborn daughter, Ivy. Ivy had never taken a breath, but she already had a name, a crib, and a collection of yellow clothes because Sarah believed every baby deserved something bright. After the funeral, I stopped caring for myself. I barely ate, ignored every phone call, and spent most days sitting in the nursery, staring at the pale-yellow walls.
My best friend, Chris, eventually arrived and ordered me to pack a bag.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I told him.
“You haven’t opened the curtains in three weeks.”
“That isn’t your concern.”
“No,” he replied. “But you are.”
I did not want to be rescued, but Chris did not ask for permission. He drove me several states away to a quiet beach. By sunset, I wanted nothing more than to return home and shut myself inside the nursery.
Then I heard a baby crying.
A second cry followed.
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