Now Jacob’s pathetic cries were a mockery, and I trembled, my knees pulled tight up to my chin. I could not, would not hold him in my arms and watch him slip away. Not again
We were drowning. The water was warm as blood and thin as paper. Maybe if I hadn’t let go, Isla would’ve lived, but when my lungs filled with air after they pulled me from the river’s choking claws, hers filled with water, and she was lost even before I had realized what I stood to lose. They tried to take me away before I could see, but I saw. Her face was blue as ice, and yet she looked calm, peaceful. Like she was sleeping.
No one spoke of what happened for months after, but Father was distant, and Levi treated me like a fragile doll. Mother, as she would be, was a quiet pillar of kindness and strength, trying as best she could to uphold our daily lives. I could not sleep — for fear that I would not wake. A sleeping victim. Like Isla. I spoke quietly, afraid to reveal how my heart still felt the icy fingers of death enclosing it.
For hours each night, I sat, unmoving, listening. Listening to the breaths, those small whispers of life from behind each curtain, and I would count every one.
Isla had made the winter months warm for us with her easy laughter and pleasant songs, and no amount of tea could do it in her stead.
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