For the many months—though not quite nine, since Ava came early—of Penny’s pregnancy, I felt as though I were holding my breath. I tried as best I could to put the last time out of my head. I envied Stewart and his family their uncomplicated anticipatory joy. For me, there was a nightmarish déjà vu to it all: I flew home (thankfully only from Park City this time) when Ava came unexpectedly early. At the hospital, I sat next to Penny, squeezing her hand. I kissed her forehead when they wheeled her away for a C-section. Penny returned from that other room on a gurney, tiny Ava with her tiny hands grasping at nothing behind the thick plastic of her incubator. Seeing them, I felt a strange cloud of doubt, like I couldn’t be sure this baby was truly Penny’s. I recognized that this was completely illogical, but when it came to my sister, I could no longer trust even what I saw with my own eyes. It wasn’t that I thought of her as a liar, nothing that simple. It was more that I felt that reality itself became distorted when Penny was involved. This time, I hadn’t dared to love Ava in anticipation of her arrival, so when I finally saw her, when I reached into the incubator to touch her tiny hand, a blinding rush of love hit me all at once.

Ava was born in March. My season had ended early when I’d caught an edge during one of my final races in San Sicario. I’d gone careening into the nets and shattered my left shinbone. I’d had to be airlifted off the hill and had undergone major surgery. I was still walking with crutches when Ava arrived early, so I moved back to Coeur d’Alene to rehab and be with my sister. For one thing, I needed to be away from the team; it was too hard to watch my healthy teammates moving around me, past me. As long as I came back for regular checkups, my coach was fine with me going home. Not being in Park City would help me resist pushing through the injury too soon, as my coaches knew I might otherwise do.

Luke didn’t make much of a nurse, acting as though my injury might be catching. It was more than that too. Perhaps I was only projecting onto him, but it was as though he started to worry that I might not blossom into the greatness that everyone had predicted, that my bronze in Salt Lake was going to be the pinnacle of my career rather than the beginning. This made it impossible for me to discuss my fears about the injury or anything else with him. I talked to Blair instead. He came over as I was packing to head back to Coeur d’Alene.