I still remember the way Stefan’s small hand tugged at mine that Sunday afternoon, his voice carrying a certainty that made the world tilt beneath my feet.
“MOM, HE WAS IN YOUR BELLY WITH ME,” he said, pointing at the boy on the swing.
At first, I thought it was just one of those strange things children say—like when they insist they remember being born, or claim they had wings in another life. But when I followed his finger, my breath caught.
The boy on the swing had Stefan’s face.
My name is Lana. I am thirty-two years old, and for five years I have lived with a secret buried so deep I thought it would never surface.
When Stefan was born, the doctors told me I had delivered twins. But one of them—my second son—was stillborn. The words had shattered me. I remember the sterile hospital room, the fluorescent lights buzzing overhead, the nurse’s pitying eyes.
I never saw the other baby. They said it was better that way.
So I poured everything into Stefan. He became my reason for breathing, my anchor in a world that had nearly drowned me. I never told him about the brother he lost. How could I? He was just a child.
But children have a way of seeing truths adults bury.
