“I’m very sorry,” he said gently. “We did everything we could.”
The world seemed to disappear beneath my feet.
I remember screaming Ava’s name.
After that, my memories became scattered pieces.
I remember Daniel holding me.
I remember someone placing a blanket around my shoulders.
I remember waking in another hospital room with an IV in my arm because I had collapsed from exhaustion and dehydration.
Daniel’s mother, Margaret, arrived and took over the funeral arrangements. I was barely able to speak, much less make decisions about flowers, music, or a burial.
Because doctors still believed Ava had died from a dangerous infection, the funeral home strongly recommended a closed casket.
I accepted without questioning it.
I was too broken to question anything.
On the day of the funeral, Daniel had to help me stand.
Lily, only three years old, kept looking around the chapel.
“Where’s Ava?” she asked.
I had no answer that a child could understand.
I knelt in front of her, held her face in my hands, and said the only words I could manage.
“Ava had to go away.”
Lily frowned.
“When is she coming back?”
I pulled her against me and cried into her hair.
“She can’t come back, sweetheart.”
But Lily shook her head.
“Yes, she can.”
Living With an Empty Bed
The years that followed were the hardest of my life.
I continued breathing because Lily needed me, but I was no longer the same woman.
Every part of our house reminded me of Ava.
There were pencil marks on the kitchen wall where we had measured the twins’ height. Two hooks still hung beside the front door, though only one small coat remained.
For months, I could not enter their bedroom without crying.
Lily refused to let us remove Ava’s bed.
“She’ll need it when she comes home,” she insisted.
We took her to a child counselor, who explained that grief could be confusing for someone so young. Lily might understand that her sister was gone one day and reject it the next.
But sometimes, what Lily said unsettled me.
“She’s not gone,” she whispered one night as I tucked her in.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because I can still feel her.”
I kissed her forehead and turned off the lamp.
I wanted to believe it was simply the bond between twins—a bond that even loss could not erase.
Daniel grieved differently. He returned to work, repaired things around the house, and rarely spoke about Ava unless I brought her up.
At night, however, I sometimes heard him crying quietly in the garage.
We were both drowning, but in separate oceans.
Three years passed.
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