“You chose well,”
***
Three years passed.
I got over my hurt feelings and met a great guy.
Rosie moved into a little yellow house with Ben on the edge of town.
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She called me every morning at nine to tell me what she was wearing.
Then came the phone call I had prayed for.
“I’m going to be a mom,” Rosie whispered. “We’re having twins.”
Then came the phone call I had prayed for.
I dropped to the floor of my apartment, laughing and sobbing at once.
All my life, people had said Rosie would never live a normal life.
Now, she was going to be a mom.
I should have known joy that big could not travel alone.
The pregnancy was difficult.
At thirty-four weeks, Rosie was rushed to the hospital.
The doctors’ prognosis was grim.
The pregnancy was difficult.
The waiting room clock ticked past midnight.
I stared at the double doors where they had wheeled Rosie in, willing them to swing open with good news.
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Ben sat beside me, his knee bouncing.
“She’s going to be okay,” I whispered, more to myself than to him. “Rosie is strong.”
Ben pressed his palms against his eyes.
I heard a sound come out of him that was somewhere between a sob and a prayer.
The waiting room clock ticked past midnight.
Then a doctor pushed through the double doors.
Ben lurched to his feet.
The doctor’s face told me the truth before his mouth did.
“She’s lost a lot of blood. We’ve stabilized the babies, but Rosie is crashing. We’re doing everything we can, but you need to prepare yourselves.”
The doctor disappeared back through the doors.
Ben stood there, frozen, swaying slightly.
“You need to prepare yourselves.”
I placed my hand on his back.
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My best friend.
My brother.
“Ben, look at me. Rosie chose you because you make her feel safe. Give her that same strength now.”
“My promise,” he whispered.
Before I could ask what he was talking about, he turned to me.
His eyes held something I could not name.
“I need to talk to you,” he said. “Away from here.”
“I need to talk to you,”
He led me down the corridor into a small alcove near the stairwell.
“I made Rosie a promise,” Ben said. “Before they took her back. She said, ‘If I don’t wake up, you tell my everything.’”
“Tell me what?”
Ben reached inside his jacket.
“It’s time for you to understand why I really married her.”
‘If I don’t wake up, you tell my sister everything.’
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I grabbed the wall to steady myself.
“Please, don’t ruin four years of watching my sister smile because of you.”
“You think I want to be standing in this hallway telling you this while she’s in there? Fighting.”
Every horrible thought I had ever pushed away came rushing back at once.
He had done it for money.
He had married her because I was the one he could not have, and Rosie was the closest he could get.
Every horrible thought I had ever pushed away
Ben pulled out a piece of paper and held it out to me.
“I made a promise, and I’m going to keep it. Just… it’s much worse than you think,” he said. “You’d better sit down.”
I took the paper with shaking fingers.
The first thing I noticed was the letterhead.
