Then she said, “I can forgive you for panicking.”
He looked up at her, something like hope crossing his wrecked face.
“But I will never forgive you for shutting me out like that again. Not once. Not for any reason. Not ever.”
“I understand,” he said, and he meant it — I could hear that he meant it.
“No more pretending you’re protecting me by lying to me.”
“I promise you. Never again.”
I stood there watching my brother, his wife, and their daughter, and for the first time since we’d buried our parents five years earlier, something in my chest that had been clenched tight finally let go.
I leaned down and kissed June’s forehead.
Then I stepped back and let them be a family without me standing in the middle of it.
PART 8
It’s been four months since that night in their living room.
June had her surgery at six weeks old. It went exactly the way Dr. Alvarez said it would — routine, as far as these things go, with a recovery that surprised even the surgeon with how smoothly it went. She’s in physical therapy twice a week now. Claire brings her, every single time, notebook still in hand, still writing down everything the therapist says like she’s terrified of losing a single word of her daughter’s progress.
