We waited as the clock counted the hours.
I sat down beside her and took her hand.
“I’m here,” I whispered. “I came as fast as I could.”
She nodded once. Her fingers were cold.
“Have they told you anything?”
“Only that they took him in,” she said. “That was two hours ago.”
We waited as the clock counted the hours.
“We did everything we could.”
Around hour four, I tried to break the silence.
She smiled, but it was the wrong kind of smile. It was the smile of someone confirming a thing they already knew.
“Alice,” she said softly, “you’re a good sister.”
Something in her tone snagged on me. She spoke like a woman who had already rehearsed this moment in the dark of some earlier night.
At hour ten, the surgeon came out. I knew before he opened his mouth. His shoulders told me. His hands, folded too neatly, told me.
My eyes wouldn’t focus.
“I’m so sorry,” he said. “We did everything we could.”
My legs went numb beneath me, and I realized I was still standing only because I had locked my knees. I heard my own voice thank him, which felt insane. Lily didn’t move. I think she had already known that, too.
I fumbled for my phone to call our parents. My thumb couldn’t find Mom in the list. My eyes wouldn’t focus.
Lily tugged my sleeve.
“You were the one I had to tell first.”
“Alice. We need to talk. Before your mother gets here.”
“Lily, not now. Please. I can’t.”
“It has to be now.”
“He just.” I choked. “He just.”
“I know,” she said. Her voice cracked and steadied in the same breath. “I know. But Ed made me promise. If anything happened, you were the one I had to tell first.”
“Your family never knew why he married me.”
I stared at her. Something in my chest went very quiet.
CONTINUED ON THE NEXT PAGE.
