She watched actions rather than accepting promises.

I had once assumed that twins would be versions of the same person.

Marianne reminded me firmly that they weren’t a single opportunity for me to redeem myself.

They were two independent people with different needs.

I made a notebook with one page for each question they asked, not as a record to prove my effort, but to remind myself that careless answers were another kind of abandonment.

Each truthful response cost me some comfortable lie I had told myself.