Chapter 6 - "What If I Lose Him Too?"
Naomi walked to the window. For a long time, none of us said anything. Then she said, "Do you know what I thought the second they told me my son needed heart surgery?"
Mom didn't answer.
"I thought, this is some kind of punishment." She shook her head. "I know it's irrational. But I'd spent years trying to get pregnant. Then I find out I had a twin brother nobody ever told me about, and he died as a baby, and then I get pregnant with twins, and my own son has a heart defect too." She turned around. "What if I lose him too?"
That was the moment Mom crossed the room. This time, when she reached for Naomi, Naomi let her.
Mom held her daughter's face in both hands. "You are not me. You did nothing wrong."
"I was still so afraid."
"You don't have to be."
"Why not?"
"Because you knew what condition your son had. We didn't know anything about Everett until it was too late."
Mom sat Naomi down beside her, and for the first time in my life, she actually talked about him. How he hated bath time. How he smiled every time Dad whistled. How Naomi used to sleep with one fist wrapped around his sleeve whenever Mom laid them close together.
"Every time I separated the two of you, you'd wake up crying," Mom said. "He had this little cough. I asked the doctor about it twice. They kept telling me babies cough."
"What happened?"
"One morning he wouldn't eat." Her voice went very quiet. "Your father took us to the hospital. By that evening, they told us his heart was failing." Naomi leaned into her. "He died the next day."
I couldn't stop the tears. Neither could Mom. "I thought if I took away every reminder," she said, "you wouldn't grow up feeling like half of something."
"You should have told us," Naomi said. "I had a brother. A twin."
"Yes."
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"And you let me find him in an archive."
"I'm sorry," Mom said. This time Naomi didn't argue back. She just cried.
