“They’re my sister’s,” she said.
She turned the page.
A hospital bed. A dying woman. Emily holding her hand.
“My sister Rachel,” she continued. “Her husband left. She worked nonstop. Men came and went—not because she was careless, but because she was desperate.”
Rachel died giving birth to her third child. The hospital was too far. Help came too late.
“She died holding my hand,” Emily said. “She begged me not to abandon her children.”
Emily was eighteen.
She dropped out of school the next day. Sold everything she owned. Became a mother overnight.
“Then why did everyone think they were yours?” Nathan asked.
“Because the world is kinder to a woman with ‘shame’ than to children with no one,” Emily replied.
If employers knew the children weren’t legally hers, she would never have been hired. Rumors were easier than the truth.
