The doctor looked up, his eyes red and desperate. “When Logan found out you were pregnant, he didn’t leave you because he didn’t love you, Joanna. He left because he was terrified of history repeating itself.

He ran away from the curse. But looking at your boy right now… looking at the strength of his cry and the color of his skin… he doesn’t have the fatal mutation. He has the benign marker. He is completely healthy.”
A heavy silence fell over the room as the sheer weight of the truth settled over us. Logan hadn’t abandoned me out of malice; he had been running from a ghost, entirely unaware that the son he left behind was perfectly fine. Dr. Evans reached out, his hand hovering over my baby’s tiny fist. “I need to find him, Joanna. We both do. He needs to know that his son is safe, and that he doesn’t have to run anymore.”

Holding my healthy baby boy in my arms, looking at the grandfather he was never supposed to meet, the cold numbness that had protected my heart for seven months finally melted away. We had a long, difficult road ahead, and a lot of healing to do—but for the first time since that front door closed, I knew we weren’t going to be alone anymore.