I WAS MOURNING MY BABY AFTER CHILDBIRTH — THEN MY 8-YEAR-OLD SON WHISPERED, “MOM, SHE’S NOT GONE. I SAW WHAT DADDY DID.”
HE HAD BEEN SAVING COINS IN A PICKLE JAR TO BUY HIS SISTER BACK. AND WHEN HE TOLD ME WHY, I REALIZED HE HAD SEEN SOMETHING NO ONE WAS SUPPOSED TO SEE.
PART 1
I was mourning my baby after childbirth — then my 8-year-old son whispered, “Mom, she’s not gone. I saw what Daddy did.”
My 8-year-old was saving up money to buy his dead sister back.
Sixty-one dollars and forty cents, in an old pickle jar with a slot cut into the lid.
Coins. Crumpled dollar bills. His lunch money.
Even the twenty dollars his grandmother gave him for his birthday, which he’d been guarding for eight weeks.
Let me start from the beginning.
My name is Claire, and my son Eli waited seven months for his baby sister.
