Chapter 1

Iris's POV

My son, Bryce Fielding, was not used to seeing me like that. He sat in silence for a long time before he finally tore open the mango candy wrapper.

The anticipation in his eyes cut me to the bone. He probably believed eating it would take him straight back to Daphne Bullman's arms.

I had reminded him countless times. I had even engraved it on his school ID tag. None of it mattered.

Nolan Fielding, my husband, rushed over and knocked the candy out of Bryce's hand.

"Iris, what is wrong with you today? He almost ate that mango candy. You know how severe his allergy is. This is not news to you."

I knew. I knew better than anyone.

I had spent years scrubbing every trace of mango from our lives like a clown. I scanned the ingredient labels on every snack and every carton of milk, word by word, terrified something would slip through the cracks.

I told Bryce the same warning over and over again.

"It does not matter who gives it to you. You never eat mango. You will end up in the hospital getting shots in the butt until you cannot sit down."

I repeated the same message to his teachers and classmates until they were sick of hearing it.

"Bryce Fielding has a mango allergy. Please keep an eye out."

I had treated mango like a death sentence, but that candy had come from Nolan. It was their ticket to seeing Daphne.

I kept my expression neutral. "Why did he have mango candy in the first place? Should I not be asking you that?"

A flicker of panic crossed Nolan's face before he brushed me off and took our son upstairs.

Every spring, they expected a table full of dishes I had cooked from scratch and handmade gifts piled high, a celebration of the family being whole again. That time, the table was bare.

Nolan frowned. "Iris, what is going on with you today?"

He noticed the redness around my eyes and sighed. "Are you still upset? I will find a way to fix this allergy thing for good. Blame the winters. I hate that I cannot be here when you need me most."

My nails dug into my palms. He remembered after all.

When I was pregnant, my mother was diagnosed with leukemia. Nolan wanted to save the baby, and I wanted to save my mother.

"I am donating my bone marrow, and no one is talking me out of it."

No one had a harder choice to make than I did. I loved my baby, and that was my mother.

Her condition deteriorated rapidly after that, as though she had already made the decision for me, and she lost eligibility for the transplant entirely. That was when we discovered she had stopped taking her medication. She had given her chance at survival to the new life growing inside me.

I gritted my teeth through the delivery, and the hormonal crash afterward pulled me under. I was diagnosed with postpartum depression.

Winter was the worst. When I was left alone, the sadness closed in from every direction. I could not pull myself out of it.

There were times I wanted to end everything, and then I thought of my son. The child my mother had traded her life for had not grown up yet. I could not go through with it.

Every winter, I tried everything to make them stay. I wrapped myself in plastic and wore a respirator mask. They could not breathe the same air as me without breaking out in rashes, and no doctor could identify the cause.

Nolan would leave with our son in a hurry. "Iris, the allergies are acting up again. Just hang in there. When spring comes, I will bring him home."

I could not make sense of any of it. I stood under the shower and scrubbed until my back bled.

Some part of me believed it was punishment. I collapsed over the edge of the bathtub and cried myself to sleep.

Those winters nearly destroyed me.

Yet all of it had been a lie.