“Can I go too?”
Back at the hospital, doctors were treating three members of the Harper family simultaneously.
Emily.
Noah.
Eli.
And nurses were examining Lucy as well.
The newborns were dehydrated and needed careful monitoring, but they had reached medical care in time.
Lucy had somehow kept them alive.
Doctors eventually discovered how.
When Emily became unresponsive, Lucy remembered watching her mother prepare bottles.
She couldn’t understand measurements perfectly.
But she recognized the containers.
She fed the babies as best she could.
She changed them.
Badly.
She wrapped them in blankets.
She slept beside their basket.
At night, she tried waking her mother.
“Mommy, Noah’s crying.”
No answer.
“Mommy?”
Nothing.
Lucy thought Emily was sleeping because she was exhausted.
On the second day, food began running out.
Lucy ate crackers.
She drank water from the kitchen faucet.
She kept caring for the twins.
On the third morning, Eli became unusually quiet.
