The banner should have been the first thing that made me cry, not the last. WELCOME HOME MOM, each shaky letter colored in with markers, drooping where the tape had given up. My ribs screamed with every breath, my hospital wristband cutting into my skin, but I smiled anyway for Lily—until her fingers clamped around mine, too tight, too urgent, and I heard the muffled laugh from upstairs, the one I knew better than my own, tangled with my sister’s breathless voi… Continues…
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