the day I dropped him off. I missed him so much.”
“Why?” Orlando asked, peering at her, as his voice went a little softer. “He isn’t yours.”
“Oh, but he is,” she whispered, swatting tears away as she explained quickly. “His mother Angie—my roommate at the time—suffered from severe postpartum depression. She wouldn’t even hold him almost from the moment he was born, so it was all me from the very beginning. I cared for him day and night, took him to all his appointments because most days she couldn’t even get out of bed she was so bad. Before I knew it, my heart had claimed him, and I completely fell in love with him. I was terrified of leaving him alone with her. She was all alone. Her single mom had smothered her younger sister to death when Angie was just six, just a week after giving birth to her sister, for the same reason—postpartum depression—and she’s been in some detention facility for the mentally ill ever since.”
“Did Angie overdose because of the depression?”
Danica felt her face scrunch as the pain of finding Angie dead assaulted her. “I think it was accidental. Ted insisted she’d done so on purpose because she’d struggled with addiction in the past, but she’d overcome it.” Orlando seemed ready to hug Danica at any moment, but he also appeared to be waiting for the rest of her explanation and hanging on her every word, so she went on. “I’d really bonded with her and my other friend Juanita, the one I told you, about while I was in jail. They’re the two friends I mentioned bonding with and staying in contact with even after we were all out. When Juanita died of a heroin overdose, Angie swore off drugs, and she’d been clean long before she ever got pregnant. But her depression was horrid. The doctors called it puerperal psychosis. It’s the severest kind of postpartum depression there is, and she was just desperate to feel normal. The morning she died was a bad one. The baby had a doctor’s appointment, and when I left to take him to it, she’d been almost hysterical. I’d forced her to eat a little and gave her, her anxiety meds, assuring her she’d feel better as soon as they kicked in. Danica squeezed her eyes shut, feeling the ongoing tears stream down her face as she shook her head. “I should’ve never left her pills on the nightstand. But it’s where she always kept them, and it never even occurred to me that she might overdo it.”
Now Orlando reached out for her hand and squeezed it. “It’s not your fault, baby. Sounds like you did everything you could.”
Nodding, Danica took a deep breath, feeling the overwhelming relief of finally being able to come clean about this to him, but she knew she still had to tell him the worst parts: the horrendous moment she realized Angie was dead and the part she was certain he wouldn’t understand and possibly never forgive her for. “When I got back from Oreo’s appointment, I thought she was asleep. I was happy she was getting a little break from the meltdown she’d had that morning. But when she didn’t wake after about an hour, I went to check on her and realized she wasn’t breathing, and she was cold to the touch. It’s when I noticed how many of her pills were gone.” Unable to go on because the painful memory completely overwhelmed her, she shook her head, closing her eyes. Like the first time she’d broke down in front of him, his arms wrapping around her felt heavenly, but it terrified her. Would this be the last time she’d be in his arms? Would he get past her selfishness of robbing him of those first weeks with his son?
Pulling away suddenly, Orlando’s expression soured. “That asshole hugged you again, didn’t he?” Wiping her nose with the back of her hand, Danica lifted her blouse to her face then closed her eyes, pissed at herself when she smelled Ted’s cologne. In her haste to rush to Orlando’s, she hadn’t even thought to change her top. But of course, she nodded as she glanced up at Orlando. Even if there was any denying it, trying to lie to him was futile. “Hold whatever thoughts you have and take that blouse off. I’ll be right back.”
He rushed out of the kitchen toward his bedroom as Danica began undoing the buttons on her blouse. Orlando