There was no warning.
No explanation that made sense.
No mistake we could identify.
No person to blame.
People sometimes think hearing “nobody did anything wrong” is comforting.
Sometimes it isn’t.
Sometimes you desperately want there to be someone to blame because anger feels easier to survive than helplessness.
The day Rosie died, David went to the funeral home.
While he was gone, I took apart her crib.
By the time he returned, the mattress was leaning against the garage wall and every piece of the crib had been carried away.
He stood in the doorway staring at me.
“You did this?”
“I couldn’t look at it.”
He nodded.
That was all.
We were both twenty-seven.
We had no idea how to grieve together.
Honestly, we barely knew how to survive separately.
And through all of it, Hannah was still there.
Still waking every few hours.
Still needing to be fed.
Still needing to be held.
Some nights, I sat in the darkness with Hannah against my chest and felt overwhelming relief every time I noticed she was still breathing.
Then I hated myself for feeling relieved.
Then I felt guilty because I was holding one living child while thinking about the one who was gone.
Somewhere in that grief, David and I made a decision.
Hannah didn’t need to know.
At first, that seemed reasonable.
She was a baby.
Then she was three.
Then five.
You don’t sit a kindergartner down and say,
“You were born with a twin sister, but she died before you could remember her.”
At least, that’s what I told myself.
David wasn’t as certain.
When Hannah was seven, we were driving home from a birthday party when he said,
“Maybe we should tell her soon.”
I stared through the windshield.
“Tell her what?”
