We were allowed to see Nadia briefly an hour later, still groggy from the surgery, tubes and monitors surrounding her in a way that made her look smaller than I’d ever seen her look in twenty-eight years.
“You read it,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper, catching sight of the folded letter still in my hand.
“I read it,” I said, sitting carefully on the edge of her bed. “You scared me half to death, Nadia.”
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“I know,” she said. “I’m sorry. I needed you to understand it was mine to choose, even if it meant scaring you first.”
“I understand,” I said, and found, sitting there, that I actually meant it completely, even through the residual fear still sitting heavy in my chest.
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The twins — a boy and a girl, named Theo and Mabel — spent eleven days in the NICU before coming home, both healthy, both entirely unremarkable in the way healthy newborns are supposed to be, neither one carrying any trace of the condition that had put their mother’s life at risk delivering them.
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Nadia’s own recovery took longer, a follow-up cardiac procedure three months later to fully repair the strain her heart had taken during delivery, followed by a careful, monitored recovery that Marcus managed with the same steady devotion he’d shown her since fourth grade, promising a prom date to a girl most other kids overlooked entirely.
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I think about that hallway often now, almost a year later, watching Nadia chase Theo and Mabel across our parents’ backyard at every family gathering, Marcus close behind all three of them the way he’s always been close behind Nadia, ready to catch whatever needed catching.
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