When visitors called the girl brave, the mother never disagreed.
But she also refused to let bravery become an excuse for expecting more from her.
“She saved us,” she told one person quietly. “Now she gets to be six.”
The wheelbarrow eventually came home too.
A responder had arranged for it to be moved from the emergency entrance after the staff no longer needed it as part of understanding how the babies had arrived.
For a while, it sat near the side of the house exactly where someone had left it.
The girl did not touch it.
Neither did her mother.
The sight of the metal handles was enough to bring back the hospital doors, the towels, the tiny sounds from inside, and the miles a child had somehow covered because staying home had finally frightened her more than leaving.
