Page 16 of Absolution

Because this? This is harder.

Waking up every morning in a sterile room that smells like antiseptic and plastic tubing, my stomach stitched and bandaged so tight I feel like I’ve been zipped shut. I can’t sit up without help. I can’t walk without someone holding my elbow. I haven’t seen the sun in days, only the dim yellow light of this hospital and the bright, too-white buzz of the NICU.

I still can’t hold them. They’re covered in wires and it’s not safe, not yet. All I want to do is hold them in my arms, keep them safe but I can’t.

They wheel me in twice a day, sometimes three if I beg. A nurse gently lifts the plastic covers on the incubator, lets me peer in.

Jemma and Iris are in one now, a shared twin isolette, something about skin proximity and regulating each other’s breathing. It’s supposed to be good for them, to help them feel safe, connected. And maybe it’s working, because the first time I saw them nestled together, their tiny bodies curled toward each other like magnets, I broke down crying in a way I hadn’t since I found out about Duke.

Their vitals are steady. They’ve graduated from ventilators to CPAP. They twitch in their sleep. Clench their little fists. Kick like they’re ready to fight their way into the world.

The nurses say they’re doing “remarkably well” for their condition. They call them strong. Resilient.

I cry every time I see them, but it’s a clean kind of ache. Hopeful.

Then there’s Levi.

He’s not improving. If anything, he’s slipping. He’s alone now. His twin is gone.

And no matter how many wires or monitors they hook him up to, no matter how loudly the ECMO machine hums beside him, I can’t stop thinking that maybe part of him knows. Maybe babies know these things. That the person they were growing with, sleeping besides, dreaming in sync with... isn’t there anymore.

His incubator is bigger. Isolated. The room feels colder when I wheel up to him. His colour is off, he’s greyish, fragile. They’ve dimmed the lights around his bed, covered his eyes with tinyfoam shades to protect them. The machine controls everything, his heartbeat, his breathing, the blood flow. I can’t even see his chest move. It’s like he’s waiting. Floating.

They say ECMO is a last resort. That his lungs just aren’t ready to do the job. That he needs time. But how much time does a baby get before hope turns into statistics?

The only child of mine I’ve held… was the one who never lived.

Duke Finn Greyson.

He never took his first breath. But he was ours. He always will be. When they handed him to me, wrapped in a blanket, still and small, he was already gone.

I pressed my lips to his forehead and gave him every ounce of love I had. And then I let him go.

His twin is still here, still fighting. So, I gave him a name that belongs only to him.

Levi Greyson.Not “the twin that lived.” Not a shadow. But a warrior. My son.

Sometimes I whisper all four names just to keep them close. Jemma. Iris. Levi. Duke.

I don’t say them out loud when Kyle’s in the room. He let me name them. Guilt, maybe. Or love. I didn’t ask. He says he’s sorry, but I'm not sure I believe him. He comes every day now. He’s here when I wake up with coffee and flowers and books he thinks I’ll read. He even asks the nurses questions and takes notes when doctors talk. Googling every condition, every number on the NICU monitors, he hasn’t left my side, not unless he has to.

I want to believe he’ll stay, that he won’t leave again, but a part of me feels like I may never forgive him for abandoning me when I needed him the most. For letting me go through that nightmare alone. He was supposed to be there. To hold my hand. To catch me when everything fell apart. And he wasn’t.

Grief has a way of distorting everything. There are moments I want to scream at him until my voice gives out. Ask him how he could do this to me. Why he didn’t answer. Why he left me to bleed and break alone. But then there are moments I want to collapse against his chest, feel his arms around me and pretend we’re okay.

So, I do neither. I stay silent. I let him sit beside me. I let him hold my hand when the nurse adjusts my IV or when I cry looking at Levi through the glass.

Because the babies need him.

Because, even though I hate to admit it, I still need him too.

I feel like my body’s failed me twice. First in labour. Then in feeding. The nurses say it’s normal to struggle with pumping. I try, every two hours like they told me. I stare at the little machine; I imagine their mouths instead of the cold plastic. Most days I barely get a few ounces. Once, nothing came out at all, and I cried so hard the lactation consultant had to sit beside me and just hold my hand.

Everyone says, “You did amazing,” like I had a choice. Like I really gave birth. But I didn’t. I was unconscious. I didn’t fight. The doctors did. The machines did.

Kyle says it too sometimes, softly when he thinks I’m half-asleep. That I’m strong. That I saved them.

But the truth is, I didn’t save all of them.

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