The third said, “Don’t show up empty-handed and useless like last time.”
I read the messages twice because my mind refused to connect them to the room around me.
Rosalie was inside a plastic incubator.
A machine was breathing for her.
My body still hurt from surgery.
Brooklyn was sleeping in a chair because she was afraid to leave her sister.
And my mother wanted dessert.
Before the emergency C-section, I had planned to attend Courtney’s gender reveal.
I had planned to pick up the cake, help arrange the food, smile for pictures, and make the day easy for everyone else.
That was the role I had been assigned in my family long before I understood it was a role.
Courtney got celebrated.
My mother directed.
My father backed her up.
I carried whatever was left.
But nothing in those old patterns made sense beneath the NICU lights.
