Three years passed.
Eventually, most of my private pain faded.
I met a kind man named Owen.
Gracie and Noah bought a yellow house near the edge of Cedarbrook.
She called me every morning at nine.
Sometimes she told me what she was wearing.
Sometimes she described whatever Noah had cooked for breakfast.
Sometimes she only wanted to explain that the weather looked “extremely Wednesday.”
Then came the telephone call I had secretly hoped she would make one day.
“I’m going to be a mother.”
I sat down on the floor of my apartment.
“What?”
“We’re having twins.”
I laughed and cried at the same time.
For most of Gracie’s life, people had spoken endlessly about everything she would supposedly never do.
She would never live independently.
Never marry.
Never build a home.
Never become a mother.
Now she was carrying twins.
I wanted joy that large to arrive without fear.
