We all had.

And in nearly losing her, I had finally learned the truth about who had spent years keeping her safe, and who had spent years plotting to send her away.

But she was here.

She was here, and she was awake, and she was holding her two babies, and she was still, after everything, the most purely loving person I had ever known.

I looked at my sister in that hospital bed, and I thought about the seven-year-old who had stood in front of her like a tiny wall, and I understood that the wall had held.