Free This Very Moment by Rachel Ann Nunes

without exhausting the battery. Before them the bright lights of Los Angeles filled nearly their entire view. For long moments they stared at the display in silence.
    Kylee’s face was serious, and Bill hated the sorrow he saw there. “What’s wrong, Kylee? You’ve hardly said a word since we talked about your ex-husband. Or am I missing something?”
    Kylee stared at her hands. “No, you’re exactly right. It is about my ex-husband. I’m sorry. I guess . . . well, I haven’t been fully honest with you, and I don’t know if I can be. It’s just . . . there are so many memories that I prefer not to . . .”
    Bill sat up straighter. This sounded serious. What was Kylee hiding? Was it something about Nicole? No, she had said it concerned her ex-husband.
    “Whatever it is, you can tell me. Or not, if you want. But you showed me last week that talking about it helps. I’d like to return the favor.”
    She fumbled in her small purse, fashioned of the same glittery bronze and gold that made up her dress. In her wallet she found a small photograph of Emily, the baby in the picture at her house. She didn’t look at him, but at the baby as she spoke, her voice sad and far away. “It’s Emily. I told you she died, but what I didn’t tell you is that she was mine.”
    Bill didn’t bother to hide his surprise. “You had a baby? What happened?”
    “After I left France I went to England for a couple of months and then to Morocco. It was there I met Raymond. He was on a photo shoot for one magazine or another, and in between his picture-taking we fell in love. Or so I thought. We were married in less than a month. We took the ferry to Gibraltar. Since you’re French I’m sure you’ve heard that anyone can get married there. Sort of a European Las Vegas. Anyway, we finished our work the next month and returned to America. It was there I discovered I was pregnant. We were both so excited, until we were told there was a very strong possibility of her having Down syndrome. All the tests pointed to it. I was five months pregnant at the time. Raymond wanted me to abort, but I couldn’t.”
    Kylee looked up at Bill now, tears in her eyes. “I knew she lived. I could feel her inside, moving. She trusted me to take care of her until she could breathe on her own. Besides, there was always the chance that the doctors were wrong.” Her gaze shifted back to the photo and her voice hardened. “That’s when Raymond left. He wasn’t about to waste his life taking care of a disabled child. My family tried to be as supportive as they could, living so far away in Minnesota, but I knew they agreed with Raymond that I should abort her. So I muddled through alone.”
    No wonder she hadn’t thought to contact Nicole, Bill thought. “I’m so sorry,” he said. Of all the words offered him after Nicole’s death, these had held the most comfort.
    “Thank you.” Kylee held his gaze. “You know, sometimes I even doubted my own decision, but when she was born and they put her in my arms, I knew I had chosen the right thing. She was four weeks early and so tiny and beautiful. I loved her immediately.”
    Bill waited for more. What had happened to Emily?
    Kylee swallowed hard. “It wasn’t until the next day that they told me Emily had something wrong with her heart that they hadn’t detected before. There would have been some chance of a transplant or something, but she was already weak, and with her defect she was never really considered a candidate for expensive heart surgery. To their credit, they did everything they could, but she died the next week. I was holding her.”
    Tears slid down Kylee’s face as she sobbed quietly. Bill blinked back his own tears and pulled her as close as he could in the car, holding her and stroking her hair. “I’m glad you told me.” He wished he could comfort her, to take away her pain. But who could make up for the neglect of a husband? Or for the loss of a child?
    “I know now that it was