I once found him asleep in a chair between the babies’ incubators, one hand resting near each child.
Rosie stood beside me with a walker.
“He snores,” she whispered.
“He always has.”
“You knew?”
“We went camping when we were fourteen.”
“You slept near my husband?”
“In separate tents.”
“He still snores too close to you.”
I stared at her.
She grinned.
Then I understood she was teasing me and nearly woke the entire NICU laughing.
When the twins finally came home, Rosie refused the elaborate nursery Ben had prepared.
“They are too little to sleep far away.”
“The nursery is across the hall,” he said.
“Too far.”
For three months, two bassinets stood beside their bed.
Evelyn moved into the cottage after federal agents cleared it. She came to visit every weekend, but she never demanded to be called Mom again.
Rosie called her Mom immediately.
I could not.
Not at first.
I called her Evelyn because seventeen years of grief had left sharp edges.
