One for my grandfather.
And now, she said once quietly to me, maybe two more for the house.
“You really aren’t scared?” I asked her late one night while helping fold baby clothes.
She smiled without looking up.
“Oh, sweetheart,” she said softly. “I’ve already lived through the worst thing.”
She meant losing him.
Nobody argued with her after that.
Last week, she finally went into labor.
Twins.
The entire family somehow ended up at the hospital despite months of fighting. Maybe anger becomes less important when something irreversible is happening.
The waiting room felt unbearable. Nobody knew where to sit or what to say to one another. My mother stared at the floor. My uncle kept checking his phone without reading anything on it.
Then a nurse finally appeared.
“They’re healthy,” she said with a smile. “Both boys.”
Something loosened in the room immediately.
For illustrative purposes only
When we entered Grandma’s hospital room, she looked exhausted beyond words. Pale. Fragile. Smaller somehow.
But peaceful.
The nurse placed the babies into her arms carefully, one wrapped in blue, the other in white.
And then Grandma froze.
Completely still.
Her eyes lifted slowly toward my mother standing beside me.
“I know whose they are,” she whispered.
My mother grabbed my arm so hard it hurt.
Because the babies looked exactly like my grandfather.
Not vaguely. Not in the way families imagine similarities because they want to.
Exactly.
