That question stayed with me.
Because that was exactly what we’d done.
We called it protection.
But secrecy had made Rosie’s name behave like something dirty.
Something dangerous.
A dead baby isn’t shameful.
Grief isn’t shameful.
Love for someone who died isn’t betrayal of the person who lived.
“I was wrong,” I said.
Hannah looked at me.
Not:
We made the best decision we could.
Not:
You’ll understand when you’re a mother.
Not:
Everything I did was because I loved you.
Just:
“I was wrong.”
She nodded.
“I know.”
That hurt.
But it also felt clean.
The next morning, Hannah asked to visit Rosie’s grave.
She had never known it existed.
Daniel drove.
I sat beside him.
Hannah sat in the back holding the photograph of the twins.
The cemetery was forty minutes away.
My parents had purchased the plot.
The marker was small.
ROSE ELIZABETH MILLER
SEPTEMBER 9 – SEPTEMBER 18
BELOVED DAUGHTER
Hannah stood before it.
She stared for almost ten minutes.
Then:
“Why isn’t my name anywhere?”
I didn’t understand.
“What?”
“We were twins.”
She pointed at the stone.
“Why doesn’t it say sister?”
I looked at Daniel.
We’d chosen the marker while barely functioning.
Beloved daughter.
That had been all we could manage.
