6 YEARS AFTER ONE OF MY TWINS D:IED, MY DAUGHTER CAME HOME FROM HER FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL AND SAID: “PACK ONE MORE LUNCHBOX FOR MY SISTER.”

And we never told our other daughter, Wren. She grew up believing she was an only child.

For years afterward, grief consumed most of who I used to be. I was anxious, distant, rarely fully present even in the ordinary moments Wren deserved a whole mother for. Eventually, my husband, Grant, couldn’t manage the weight of it anymore, and he left when Wren was three.

So it became just me and Wren after that, the two of us building a small, careful life together in Fernbrook, far enough from where the twins had been born that I could almost convince myself, most days, that the past belonged to a different town entirely.

On her first day of kindergarten this fall, Wren came home, dropped her backpack by the door, and announced, completely matter-of-fact, “Mom, pack one more lunchbox tomorrow.”