Chapter 5 - The Photograph
Naomi looked toward the blanket. "I found pictures of Everett."
Mom went rigid. "Where?"
"In Dad's old storage box. Wrapped up safe." Naomi pulled out her phone, opened a photo, and handed it to me.
Mom was in it, decades younger, sitting on a couch. Two babies lay across her lap on that same blue blanket. One in blue, one in yellow. The baby in blue looked so much like Naomi's son that for a second I genuinely couldn't tell the photos apart — same round forehead, same little mouth, same crease between the eyebrows.
"Oh my God."
Naomi took the phone back. "Exactly. I didn't want everyone standing around my baby saying, 'Who does he look like?' I couldn't handle it."
I finally understood the list. Not all of it — just enough. Naomi hadn't written twelve rules because she wanted to control a family dinner. She'd written them because she was terrified.
Still, I asked, "Why don't you want the blue blanket there?"
May you like
Mom's shoulders dropped. "It was Everett's first, before they ever shared it." When the twins were born, Naomi spent two days in special care because she had trouble holding her body temperature. Everett stayed with Mom. That blue blanket was the first one Mom ever wrapped around him. Later, once both babies were home, she used it for both of them — added Naomi's initials after she came home, then added Everett's underneath, smaller.
After Everett died, Mom couldn't look at it. She packed it away.
