The Quickening by Michelle Hoover

Author:Michelle Hoover
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781590513606
Publisher: Other Press
Published: 2010-06-28T22:00:00+00:00

I did not see Enidina again for weeks, not until they let her come home for good. Twins, they said—such was her luck. They were small and weak and stayed with the doctor for longer than any mother should bear. Enidina sat with Frank in the back row of the church, holding on to herself. Her cheeks were doughy and full, her mouth showed hints of a smile, but in her eyes was an inward look that said she was trying not to think of anything at all—not of how she could lose them, not of how something might still go wrong. She sat in the church and held her own, wishing the time would soon pass for any such thinking to be possible.

“Best stay home after this,” I told her.

Enidina relaxed into her seat, and that inwardness in her eyes lifted. “I’ll stay home when I’m ready,” she said, without a hint of bitterness. She took my hand and squeezed it in both her own until my knuckles cracked.

In the months to come, I would see her holding her new boy and girl in that back pew, one in each arm. They had Frank’s black hair, but otherwise looked as different as their own parents—the girl thin and fair-skinned like her father and the boy a meaty bundle with Enidina’s powerful limbs. Who would have known Enidina could be a mother to so much? She held on to those twins as if keeping the world upright, and when they grew to stand and fret at her feet, her hands kept them close. There was something in Enidina’s strength and stubbornness, in her very size—with her tight hold on those children, she alone seemed to be holding off the terrible events that were to come to us.

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