By the time we touched down, it was all over. The babies didn’t survive. Emily had picked Penny up, and she was resting at home. Jon was still trying to make his way home, waylaid by his truck having broken down somewhere outside of Salt Lake City. It didn’t hit me until that moment quite how clearly I’d been envisioning those two little girls as a part of our family. I’d had to miss the baby shower but had wrung up a monstrous bill buying up half of Penny’s registry on Babies “R” Us. Babies make you project into the future, and without even meaning to I’d imagined twins—one like me, boisterous and physical, one like Pen, quiet and kind—running through the halls of our parents’ house, flinging themselves at me when I came through the door for visits. I imagined their girlish ringlets and their missing teeth, I wove them into my own visions of the future, imagining them one day wanting to try on my gold medal. Children of my own were still an abstract, distant thought, but the idea of being an auntie filled me with a kind of love I’d never experienced. I’d embraced it with my whole heart, and I felt the loss acutely now.

Once we arrived, we went straight to Penny and Jon’s creaky little two-bedroom house in Hayden to pick Penny up and look after her until Jon returned. I’d last been here over the holidays, right before Jon had left for his new job. The place had been in a state of half-finished disarray: the scraggly yard untouched; a restoration of the kitchen cabinets underway but not yet completed; the second bedroom half-painted a calming shade of periwinkle, a roller still in its foil bin, the drop cloth spread over the carpet. I was surprised as we came in through the front door, calling Penny’s name, to find that the house was exactly as it had been, but with an additional few layers of squalor, including the overflowing litter box of Penny’s cat, Noodles. It seemed every surface was covered with debris and clutter, and the kitchen smelled of neglect and spoiled food. Even as I took in the disturbing tableau I made excuses for it. Penny worked hard at her clinic job and she’d had a difficult pregnancy; suddenly, I was livid with Jon. How could he be so useless? What was wrong with him that he could only find work in Arizona? He’d abandoned her.

That night, I slept beside Penny in the old trundle bed in her room. My mom had outfitted them with their old unicorn sheets, worn soft with age and replete with the homey, indelible smells of childhood. Penny was exhausted and a little wonked out on painkillers. My mom made us grilled cheese sandwiches and soup for dinner and we tucked ourselves into bed at 9:00 p.m.