She shook her head.
“I didn’t answer.”
“She was eight.”
“I know.”
“She thought you didn’t want her?”
“For years.”
I leaned back.
Mary had always hated asking for favors, even something as simple as water.
She worried constantly about becoming a burden.
I’d thought it was merely her personality.
“She stopped bringing me his pictures,” her mother said.
“Stopped asking about him. I thought she was getting better.”
“She was trying not to upset you.”
“Yes.”
A cry interrupted us.
I went into the nursery and lifted our smaller daughter against my chest. She settled almost immediately.
Her sister slept nearby, one fist resting beside her cheek.
Neither knew what had happened at the hospital.
Someday, they’d ask.
I feared that conversation more than anything.
When I returned, their grandmother was studying a photograph on the refrigerator.
Mary was laughing, holding tiny shoes she’d bought before discovering we were having twins.
