I watched his face change.
“Ryan?” I said. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
My brother didn’t answer me. He kept staring at the baby, and then, very carefully, he shifted her in his arms and looked at her back.
Melissa was still crying happy tears, wiping her face with the corner of the hospital gown.
“Let me hold her, honey. Give her to me.”
“What’s wrong?”
But Ryan didn’t move toward his wife. He turned toward me instead, looking pale. He cleared his throat, and when he spoke, his voice came out flat and strange, as if it belonged to someone else.
“I’m sorry, but… I can’t take her home.”
The room became silent. I thought I’d misheard him.
“What did you just say?”
“I can’t take her home.”
“Ryan, what are you talking about?” Melissa’s smile was still frozen on her face, as if her brain hadn’t caught up yet. “Give me the baby.”
My brother looked at his wife. Then he looked at me. And then he said the words that broke everything.
“I’m sorry, but I have to give up the baby. I’m not taking her with me!”
And he placed her back in my arms.
“What are you talking about?”
I couldn’t breathe. My body was still shaking from labor, and now my brother, my twin, my best friend, had just handed me his daughter as if she were a package delivered to the wrong address.
“Ryan, she’s your daughter,” I said, and I could hear my voice trembling. “What is going on?”
Melissa was out of her chair now, her hands out, tears in her eyes.
“Why? Ryan, why can’t we take our daughter home? Tell me right now!”
I couldn’t breathe.
My brother wouldn’t look at her. He kept his eyes on the floor, his face going that awful shade of red I recognized from when we were kids and he’d done something he couldn’t take back.
He exhaled and said, “Look at her back. We can’t do this.”
I hadn’t looked yet. I’d been so focused on his face that I hadn’t unwrapped the blanket.
My brother wouldn’t look at her.
With trembling fingers, I turned the baby gently onto her side and pulled the fabric down just enough.
There, at the base of her spine, was a small reddish mark. A soft, raised area, covered by skin, no bigger than a quarter.
I knew what it was. I’d read the pamphlets they sent home. My stomach turned over, and I nearly fainted.
“It’s spina bifida,” I whispered.
Melissa made a sound I hope I never hear again.
I turned the baby gently onto her side.
It wasn’t a word. It was a scream that filled the whole hallway, and I heard footsteps running.
“No. No, no, no,” my SIL kept saying. “The ultrasounds were fine! They said she was fine! They said she was fine, Ryan!”
“Melissa, please,” Ryan said. He still wasn’t looking at anyone.
Nurse Bianca burst back in, another nurse right behind her.
