Evie sees that, too, naturally. “You’re getting better.”
“At holding her?”
“At not treating her like she’s made of glass.”
I look down at my daughter. “She is made of glass.”
“Yes,” Evie says. “But she’s also a person.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
I answer honestly. “I’m trying.”
Evie’s gaze stays on me for a moment, then she nods. She lifts Sofia with more ease than I have, though I know her body still hurts. The birth was not clean. Nothing about it was. Two daughters. Too early by some standards, strong enough by others, hours of pain Evie refused to dramatize and therefore made more frightening.
She counted exits in the delivery room, too. Three doors. One window. One supply passage. A vent too small for use but noted.
I saw. I said nothing.
Later, when the girls were placed against her, she stopped counting. For ninety-four seconds. Then she began again. Door. Window. Nurse. Doctor. Me.
I understood then that some cracks don’t close because the life placed beside them becomes precious. Precious things require more counting, not less.
Sofia settles against her mother. Evie closes her eyes. “You should sleep.”
“I did.”
“For two hours.”
“That counts.”
“No.”
“In the current system, yes.”
“The current system is inefficient.”
“The current system involves two infants who believe time is a theory.”
Lucia turns her face against my shirt. I lower my voice without intending to. “We have nurses.”
Evie’s eyes open. “I know.”
“I’m not suggesting replacement.”
“I know.”
“I’m suggesting rest.”
“I know.”
She does know. That isn’t the problem. The problem is what the body remembers before the mind grants permission.
I adjust. “After they feed,” I say, “I’ll stay.”
Her gaze returns to mine. “With them?”
