The Twin Missing From the Family Photo novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: Seconds

I sat down.

I did it because Talbot's boot had left my ankle and settled on the floor beside mine, and I understood that he was waiting for me to choose.

My father stayed on his feet at the head of the table.

For twenty-two years he had walked out of the room when the story of our birth began.

That night he told it himself.

"There was a snowstorm," he said. "We were at a country clinic with a generator that was failing. My wife was in labor with twins, and I was the only doctor for forty miles."

The donor leaned forward.

His wife was already dabbing her eyes.

"The first baby came out loud and pink and perfect," my father said. "That was Carrie. She was big. She had everything she needed. And the second baby came out small, and blue, and still."

Ivy's hands lay in her lap.

"I breathed for her," my father said. "I brought her back with my own mouth. And I have never forgotten what the doctors told me afterward: when twins share a womb, one of them can take the best of it. Carrie took the room, the blood and the air, and Ivy paid for it."

He looked at me then, and his eyes were wet.

"I have never blamed her. A baby can't help what she takes. But I'd ask her, tonight, to remember what it cost her sister."

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