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I look for the tightness that gets into his shoulders when the ranch comes up, and it isn't there. He's calm.

The old reflex kicks in anyway. I hand it back before I can stop myself. "You don't have to. Whatever wor⁠—"

"Whatever works."

I stop.

"You said that in my truck on the fifth of February." His thumb moves once across the back of my hand. "I've thought about it a lot."

"I meant that I don't want you to feel like you have to do anything. I know this wasn't your decision."

"I know what it was supposed to be."

He doesn't say anything else. He keeps hold of my hand instead.

We make the small plans. Tomorrow and the day after that. The twins have two weeks in special care ahead of them, maybe three. I can't fly with them until their doctors sign off.

He doesn't give me anything past that. That conversation doesn't have to be tonight. Nothing has to be tonight.

In July I told Hildie I was getting used to having him around. I only managed that much because I knew she might not remember it by dinner.

That isn't what I'd say now.

At seven on Sunday morning, I'm in the nursery, parked in the wheelchair between the two isolettes.

Carson has a feeding syringe in his hands. Bettina stands at his shoulder, walking him through it, and his fingers look ridiculous around that little plunger, all scarred knuckle and split skin. He follows every word she gives him like it's gospel.

"You sure you haven't done this before?"

"No, ma'am."

I watch those enormous hands manage that small thing, and I keep the words.

For once, I don't need to say them yet.

SEVENTEEN

Carson

Joy to the world, the Lord is come / Let earth receive her King / Let every heart prepare Him room

By Monday afternoon, the discharge folder is thick in Mackie's lap. She has a prescription for the blood pressure and a page of numbers to watch for and a plastic bracelet on her wrist that nobody has cut off yet. She's walked to the bathroom and back all weekend, but the hospital won't let her leave on her own feet, so there's a wheelchair by the bed and an aide waiting behind it.

Before any of that, she wants the nursery.

I don't rush her. I stand back and let her stand at the two isolettes as long as she wants. The bag Lis packed on the fifth is on my shoulder, and the two going-home outfits are still folded at the top of it, clean, never worn, because neither baby is going home in them today.

She looks for a long time. Then she sits down in the wheelchair on her own.

I carry the bag and push her to the elevator.

We take Lis' car. The two car seat bases are strapped in behind us, the ones I put in back in July with a fireman standing over my shoulder telling me to pull harder. They're empty, and they stay empty the whole way across the garage.

She held it together through the elevator, the lobby, and the sliding doors out into the heat. She even made it to the passenger seat and sat down with one foot still on the concrete and the door open.

But now that she’s here, she folds forward and covers her face with both hands. The sound she makes doesn't carry more than a foot, but it still guts me. I don't reach for her.

"Don't say anything," she says into her hands.