LeeAnn’s heart stilled. There was trouble with Michael.

She looked at the picture for a long, long time, searching these faces she really didn’t know at all and yet knew so well. They were part of her. Michael was her son. Even though she’d abandoned her children as babies, she knew his face like she knew her own.

There was trouble in Michael’s face, she thought. His expression was shuttered, and with a pang of distress she saw a suffering there that she recognized as her own all those years ago when she’d left her four small children to be cared for by strangers.

“Michael,” she whispered. “My little one. What’s wrong?”

There was no answer. How could there be? LeeAnn was in a hospice in the final stages of incurable cancer, and her children didn’t even know her name. They were no longer her little ones. They were adults, and unaware of her existence.

Or maybe not. Had Megan Maitland given them her gifts? Given them her message? She’d sent the three little sweaters she’d made herself all those years ago, each embroidered with a triplet’s name, and she’d tucked in Garrett’s teddy, the one she’d used as her only comfort over the years.

It didn’t matter, she told herself bleakly. She’d sent them. That was enough. They were tokens to tell them that they were loved-nothing more. These lovely young adults, smiling at her from the newsprint, were no longer part of her life. She’d forfeited her right to know them when she’d abandoned them as babies all those years ago.

But she couldn’t stop gazing at the pictures, question after question forming in her heart. Did they know she’d had no choice? Did they realize that once Gary had died, there’d been so many debts, so little money-no support at all-that to keep them would have been cruel? Did they judge her harshly?