Miles pulled their son into an embrace. “Don’t do that,” he said, and by the end of his breath, they were both crying. “She’s right here. We knew you’d want to say good-bye.” He led their burned, bandaged son to the gurney, where his sister lay strapped down, her body covered in white and kept alive by wheeled machines.
Zach felt for his sister’s hand and held it. As always, they came together like puzzle pieces. He bowed forward, let his bandaged head rest on his sister’s chest. He whispered the nickname from their babyhood, “Me-my…,” and said something Jude didn’t understand; probably it was a word from long ago, forgotten until now, a word from the twin language that was theirs alone. It had always been Zach chattering back then, talking for his sister … and it was that way again.
Behind them, someone knocked on the door.
Miles took his son by the shoulders, eased him back from the gurney. “They have to take her now, son.”
“Don’t put her in the dark,” Zach said in a hoarse voice. “I’m not really the one who was afraid. It was her.” His voice cracked. “She didn’t want anyone to know.”
At that little reminder of who they were, who they’d been—the twins—Jude felt the last tiny bit of courage crumble away.
Don’t put her in the dark.
Jude squeezed Mia’s hand tightly, clinging to her daughter for as long as she possibly could.
Miles and Zach came up around her, reached out. They held one another upright, the three of them, the family that was left.
The knock at the door came again.
“Jude,” Miles said, his face wet with tears. “It’s time. She’s gone.”
Jude knew what she had to do, what they all were waiting for. She’d rather cut out her own heart. But she had no choice.
She let go of her daughter’s hand and stepped back.
Thirteen
Jude crouched in the hallway near the OR door. At some point, she’d lost her footing and fallen to the cold linoleum floor, and she stayed there, her face pressed to the wall. She could hear people coming and going around her, rushing from one trauma to the next. Sometimes they stopped and talked to her. She looked up into their faces—frowning and compassionate and a little distracted—and she tried to understand whatever it was they were saying, but she couldn’t. She just couldn’t. Her whole body shook with cold and her vision was cloudy and she couldn’t hear anything except the reluctant beating of her heart.
No. I do not forgive you.
We’ll talk tomorrow.
These were the words that ran in an endless loop through her mind.
“Judith?”
She turned slightly, saw her mother standing there, tall and straight, her white hair perfectly styled, her clothes ironed. She knew her mother had been here for hours; she’d tried repeatedly to speak to Jude, but what good were words now between strangers?
“Let me help you, Judith,” her mother said. “You can’t sit here in the hallway. Let me get you some coffee. Food will help.”
“Food will not help.”
“There’s no need to yell, Judith.” Mother glanced up and down the hallway, to see who might have heard the outburst. “Come with me.” She reached down.
Jude wrenched sideways, scurrying tighter into the corner. “I’m fine, Mother. Just let me be, okay? Find Miles. Or go see Zach. I’m fine.”
“You most certainly are not fine. I think you should eat something. You’ve been here seven hours.”
Already Jude was sick of people saying this to her. As if food in her stomach would remedy the hole in her heart. “Go away, Mother. I appreciate you coming here, okay? But I need to be alone. You wouldn’t understand.”
“Wouldn’t I?” Her mother made a quiet sound, and then said, “Fine.” She lowered herself to her knees beside Jude.
“What are you doing?”
Her mother collapsed the last inch to the cold linoleum floor. “I’m sitting with my daughter.”