in a helicopter for twenty minutes without crossing the boundary.
None of it mattered inside Room 814 of St.
Matthew Medical Center.
Dr.
Franklin Yates stood beside me while Jonah and Blythe slept behind a glass partition.
They were six years old.
They had been born seven minutes apart.
Jonah had arrived first, red faced and furious, his tiny fists closed as if he had already decided the world owed him an explanation.
Blythe had come quietly.
She had opened her eyes almost immediately and stared toward the sound of her mother’s voice.
Genevieve used to say that told us everything we needed to know about them.
Jonah entered every room as if he owned it.
Blythe entered as if she already understood it.
Now neither child had the strength to sit up without help.
Leukemia had taken their hair first.
Then their appetites.
Then the color from their faces.
