She paused.
“Then I realized I couldn’t remember the last time I’d sung with her.”
She’d retrieved Mary’s letter, reread it, and found two unopened dresses she’d purchased before the birth.
That morning, she’d driven to our house and remained outside nearly an hour.
“I almost left.”
“What stopped you?”
“I imagined them getting old enough to ask why Grandma never came.”
I glanced toward the nursery.
“And what would you have said?”
She shook her head.
“Nothing that wouldn’t have hurt them.”
Silence settled between us.
Then I admitted something I’d never told anyone.
“Sometimes I wish Mary were here so badly I feel guilty looking at the girls.”
She listened.
“I’ll be holding one, and I’ll think Mary should be doing this. She should be here for the first smiles. She should know which one hates a cold bottle.”
My throat tightened.
“And then I think about what I said at the hospital.”
“Mary asked you.”
“I agreed.”
“Because you trusted her.”
I shook my head.
“I keep thinking I traded her for them.”
She reached across the table.
I withdrew my hand, not from hatred, but because I needed to finish.
“I’ve never wished they weren’t born. Not once.”
“I believe you.”
“But I wish she hadn’t died.”
“Of course you do.”
I stared at her tearful face.
“Those aren’t the same wish,” she said.
I remembered Mary’s question.
Even if you missed me?
I’d promised to miss her every day while loving our daughters just as deeply.
She’d believed me.
A baby began crying.
I entered the nursery, lifted her, and accidentally woke her sister.
Soon, I had one daughter against each shoulder.
Their grandmother watched from the doorway.
