Just one.
Small enough to fit in my palm.
I sat on the floor.
Chloe sat beside me.
Neither of us said anything for a long time.
My niece was born in April, during a thunderstorm that knocked out the hospital television.
Chloe held my hand so tightly I lost feeling in two fingers.
“Don’t leave,” she whispered.
“I’m getting a nurse.”
“Please.”
I looked at her.
For a second, I saw both of us as children.
One waiting by a window.
One learning that love could be withdrawn if she made the wrong move.
“I’m coming back,” I said.
Then I did.
Afterward, when the baby lay against Chloe’s chest, my sister cried with a bewilderment that made her look very young.
“How do I know I won’t be like them?”
I brushed one finger against the baby’s closed hand.
“You keep asking that,” I said.
