A neighbor coming home from a late shift noticed my door was open, walked in, and found me barely alive, clutching Julian's clothes to my chest.
After they brought me back, the doctors told me I was three months pregnant.
Everyone told me to let go. Julian was gone. The baby would be nothing but a burden I'd carry for the rest of my life. They urged me to end the pregnancy while I still could.
But I refused.
He was gone. That child was the only proof that what we had was real.
The only tie he still had to this world.
I underestimated how cruel life could be.
Before she was even six months old, Jeanette Harding was diagnosed with a congenital heart defect.
So for four years, I never stopped. Not for a single moment.
Every time I felt like I couldn't go on, I'd pull up my old messages with Julian, reading those tender words over and over.
Foolishly telling myself that if he were really here, he would never let me suffer like this.
What I never imagined was that when I finally saw him again, he'd be healthy, wealthy, thriving, with a doting wife in his arms and an unborn child on the way.