“Wait.” Amy peered closer. She could see that one of his mother’s hands was placed on Ryan’s knee, but the other was resting on her very pronounced stomach. “Your mother was pregnant?”

Ryan reached back into the box and pulled out the X-ray film, which, seen properly and in the light, clearly wasn’t an X-ray film at all—it was a sonogram. He showed it to Amy. “Yes, she was pregnant with a baby girl. She was five months along.”

Amy stared at the sonogram then back up at him, confused. “I didn’t realize that. I . . . didn’t know you had a sister.”

“I don’t. I mean, in a way, yes, I did, but I never got to meet her. Never got the chance.”

“Oh no. She lost the baby?”

“There were complications,” he said, his voice broken and scratchy. He tried to clear his throat. “Six weeks after that photo was taken, Mom went into labor. But the delivery was very premature and there were serious problems. I can’t remember the exact name for it, but it had something to do with the fluid for the baby ending up in my mother’s bloodstream. It’s one of those things that’s very rare. There was nothing anyone could do.”

Amy covered her mouth. “Ryan, are you saying that’s how your mom . . .” She couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence.

“We lost them both,” he said, and he closed his eyes.

“Oh my God.”

He fidgeted with his hands. There was a long silence.

She reached over, touched his arm. “I am so sorry.”

Ryan rubbed his face and set the sonogram to one side. “It was a long time ago now.”

“Yes, but still, that’s awful. How old were you again?”

“Thirteen.”

“And you were able to make it through? How did you come out the other side of something like that?”

“I’m not sure I know.”

Amy looked him deep in the eyes. She didn’t think it could be possible, but she felt even deeper levels of admiration for him.

“How much about her do you remember?” she asked.

“Lots.”

“You think about her often?”

“All the time. Every day. I’ve never stopped thinking about her. Never stopped missing her.”

“And that doesn’t make you sad?” Amy knew she might start crying soon if they stayed on this topic for too long, but she didn’t care. These were things she really wanted to know—things she had to know.