He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to. The ballroom heard Jenna condemn herself in her own words, every cruel sentence echoing around the flowers and fairy lights she’d obsessed over. When he said, “This is me choosing them over you,” the room seemed to tilt—away from her, toward the twins standing rigid at his side. By the time security walked her out, mascara streaked and shrieking, the narrative she’d curated online was already collapsing under the weight of the truth.
In the quiet days that followed, the drama moved from spectacle to healing. A restraining order. Finalized adoption papers. Two signatures written with trembling hands and a whispered, “We won’t be separated now.” Grief stayed, but it changed shape. It lived in spaghetti dinners too loud for a Tuesday, in glitter pens and garden dirt, in a single candle burning before Naomi’s photo. On a worn couch, with a daughter tucked into each arm, he finally understood: family wasn’t the life he’d planned. It was the promise he kept.
