I still hear her voice in my head. Soft. Careful. As if she didn’t want to scare me away.
She asked, “Did I do something wrong?”
When I saw the tears in her eyes, panic took over. I said something awful, something I can never take back. “I’m sorry, but she’s still really my mom,” I stammered. “Well… unlike, ugh, you. I love you so much anyway.”
The look on Eva’s face broke something in me. But she nodded. She always nodded. She hugged me, kissed my forehead, and told me she understood.
The delivery itself was long and exhausting. Hours blurred together. My biological mom sat in the room, but she wasn’t really present. She complained about the hospital coffee. She scrolled on her phone. When I cried out in pain, she told me to “try to relax.”
Through the haze, I remember thinking: Eva would have held my hand.
At one point, I turned my head and froze. Through the glass window in the hallway, I saw Eva walk past my room. She was carrying a tray with coffee cups and sandwiches.
She didn’t try to come in. She didn’t wave. She didn’t cause a scene.
