The hospital slowly disappeared in my rearview mirror while Nora slept beside me in her car seat. For the first time in thirteen days, I finally let myself breathe. Thirteen days in the NICU. Thirteen nights of going home to an empty apartment. Now, my tiny daughter was finally coming home—four pounds, eleven ounces, breathing on her own, with one tiny fist tucked beside her cheek. I truly believed the worst was behind us.

Nora had her father Caleb’s dark curls, his cleft chin, and his unusual eyes—one bright blue, the other so dark it looked almost black. The doctors called it harmless heterochromia. “Someone in the family probably has it,” the nurse said. But Caleb had disappeared the night I told him I was pregnant. No goodbye. No explanation. My grandfather, Walter, had raised me after my parents died and had promised we would be fine without Caleb. Yet when I brought Nora to his house, everything changed. The moment Grandpa saw her eyes, his face went white. He whispered, “Who is her father?” When I said Caleb’s name, he trembled. Then he looked at me and said, “Your mother used to be Caleb’s nanny.”