My husband hit me… He didn’t come to the maternity ward.

So, that day, I went home alone — with a heavy heart, with my two newborns against me.

— “A taxi to Linden Street, number eight,” I murmured, holding my son on one side and my daughter on the other.

The driver nodded without a word, his eyes catching the rearview mirror. Two tiny swaddled beings, two ribbons — one pink, one blue.

Four tiny eyes plunged into mine… a trust so pure it almost broke me.

— “Is their father waiting for you?” he dared to ask as the car started.

I did not answer. What could I say? That he hadn’t picked up the phone once in three days? That the nurses exchanged awkward looks when I asked if he had come?

That the only flowers in my room came… from my neighbor across the hall?

Mila — that is what I named my daughter — made a little pout and whimpered softly. In a second, her brother, Adam, began to cry. My twins…

— Hush, my treasures… Mommy is here.

At home, the mess and the smell of tobacco welcomed me. He had not come back. I laid Mila and Adam in their little beds prepared before their birth. I sat down next to them and cried, promising never to leave them. But at the moment when I dried my tears, a dull noise echoed in the hallway — and when I raised my eyes, I saw… the unthinkable….

The rest in the first comment below. 

“Two little hearts in my arms”

When they laid my twins — a girl and a boy — on my chest, I thought I would melt with tenderness. But behind this joy, an icy emptiness: their father was not there. Three days in the hospital, three days of silence. No flowers, no visit, nothing.

On the day of discharge, other mothers were surrounded by relatives. Me, I was waiting for a taxi with my babies swaddled in their blankets. Two little trusting faces, two ribbons — pink and blue.

— “Is their father waiting for you?” asked the driver.

I turned my head. What to answer? That he had abandoned me?

My daughter, Mila, began to cry. Her brother, Adam, imitated her at once. I whispered softly:

— Hush, my treasures… Mommy is here.

At home, the mess and the smell of tobacco welcomed me. He had not come back. I laid Mila and Adam in their little beds prepared before their birth. I sat down next to them and cried, promising never to leave them. But at the moment when I dried my tears, a dull noise echoed in the hallway — and when I raised my eyes, I saw… the unthinkable….

The front door was swinging slightly, as if someone had just pushed it and slipped away. My heart was pounding; I did not dare move, my eyes fixed on the shadow stretching along the wall. Yet when I gathered courage to go look, the hallway was empty. Only silence, heavy and stifling, answered me.

Sleepless nights began immediately: nursing, rocking, changing, starting again. Exhausted, I stood only thanks to them. My husband, he, remained absent. When I managed to reach him, he answered dryly: “I’m busy.”

Fortunately, my neighbor, Aunt Rosa, supported me. She brought me hot meals, sometimes watched the babies so I could breathe for a moment. “You are strong,” she told me, “but don’t forget to eat, otherwise you will collapse.”

A month later, he finally came back. Drunk, bitter, he said to me:

— So, Mother Courage, are you managing?

He denied his own children: “They don’t even look like me.”

That evening, I told him to leave. And he went out, slamming the door.

From that moment, I no longer waited for his return. I decided to fight alone. For Mila. For Adam.

One morning, I took a taxi to bring the twins to the doctor. By chance, it was the same driver who had taken me back from the maternity ward.

— “So, how are our little passengers?” he said with a smile.

His name was Julien. Little by little, he became a discreet but constant presence: a bag of groceries left at my door, a hand to carry the stroller, a kind word when he saw my dark circles.

— “It’s not pity,” he told me one day. “Just humanity.”

And I accepted.

The weeks passed, and Julien got closer to us. The children laughed in his arms, sought his gaze as if they had always known him. For them, he became a father of the heart. For me, a friend, then a support, then… a love.

When their father wanted to come back, I closed the door on him. This time, I was no longer alone.

The years passed. Mila and Adam grew, took their first steps, spoke their first words. Julien was there at every moment: he threw the ball with Adam, carried Mila on his shoulders, read them stories.

One day, he simply said to me:

— I love you, you and the children, more than anything.

And I understood that my heart already belonged to him.

Epilogue

Two years later, I came home with my twins running around me, and Julien carrying a big bouquet of daisies, my favorite flowers.

This time, I was no longer an abandoned woman. I was a mother loved, a woman respected, and my children finally had a real home.

Two little hearts in my arms had given me the strength to start all over again.