We named her Elisa, quietly, privately, in the kind of hushed, careful conversation you have when grief hasn’t fully settled into anything real yet.
And we never told our other daughter, Wren. She grew up believing she was an only child.
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For years afterward, grief consumed most of who I used to be. I was anxious, distant, rarely fully present even in the ordinary moments Wren deserved a whole mother for. Eventually, my husband, Grant, couldn’t manage the weight of it anymore, and he left when Wren was three.
So it became just me and Wren after that, the two of us building a small, careful life together in Fernbrook, far enough from where the twins had been born that I could almost convince myself, most days, that the past belonged to a different town entirely.
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On her first day of kindergarten this fall, Wren came home, dropped her backpack by the door, and announced, completely matter-of-fact, “Mom, pack one more lunchbox tomorrow.”
“For who?” I asked, only half paying attention while I unpacked groceries.
“For my sister.”
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I laughed, nervous in a way I didn’t fully understand yet.
“You don’t have a sister at school, sweetheart.”
Wren frowned at me like I was the one being unreasonable.
“Yes, I do. She sits beside me. Her name is Lizzy.”
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My blood ran cold instantly.
I had never once told Wren that name. Not Elisa, not any shortened version of it, not in six years of carefully avoiding the subject entirely.
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