I Gave It All Back to My Sister, Even My Husband novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: Husband

At six in the morning I was lying in a pre-op bay in a paper gown, with an IV in my arm and Gavin holding my other hand.

He had not slept either.

He had fallen asleep for forty minutes on the daybed with his arm over me, and I had watched him do it.

"The surgeon says two hours," he said. "Maybe three."

"I know."

"I'll be here when you wake up."

"I know that too."

"Say it back."

"You'll be here," I said.

A nurse looked in, saw us, and tactfully went away.

I was almost calm.

Then the curtain was pulled aside by a hand with a diamond on it.

"There you are," said Miriam.

My heart sank.

Miriam stood in the gap in a camel coat and pearls.

Behind her stood my twin sister with a bunch of white tulips in her arms, and behind Willa, in a gray cardigan I knew from every Christmas of my life, stood my mother.

Helen Rowe looked smaller than I remembered.

She was fifty-eight, and she was already crying.

"Cassandra," she said. "Oh, Cassandra. Why didn't you tell me?"

"How did you know?"

"I called," Willa said softly. "The hospital. I said I was your sister, which I am. They told me about the surgery."

She laid the tulips on the blanket.

"I love you, Cass," she said. "I came to say it."

Gavin stood up.

He was calm, and very quiet, and every inch of him was cold.

"Get out," he said.

"Gavin," said Miriam.

"All of you. Now."

"She's my daughter," said my mother. "She has cancer, and she told you and not me. I have a right to be here."

"You had twenty-nine years of rights," said Gavin.

My mother flinched.

Willa stepped forward and took my free hand in both of hers.

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