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Show look at us or wave goodbye. Aunt Val made pancakes for breakfast both mornings mom and dad were gone, and one night she let us stay up late enough to watch M*A*S*H. That was the year mom didn't have a baby. When she came home from the hospital, holding onto dad's arm all the way from the car to the front door, she had her orange and green suitcase but her stomach wasn't as big and there was no baby. Aunt Val was the first to hug mom while we stood and waited. Mom didn't say anything, but Aunt Val said she was so, so sorry. Aunt Val cried but mom didn't, and they stood that way for a long time, not talking. Finally, dad pulled us into the kitchen because he said he had a surprise for us. The surprise turned out to be candy he'd bought at the hospital gift shop, but when he knelt down to give it to us he said he had some bad news. He said that the baby, a girl, was what they called a stillborn. That meant she was with God, he said. That meant she was dead. When we asked if there was going to be a funeral for the baby, dad looked at us like he hadn't even thought about it. He said he didn't know, and then he said he didn't think so. That was the year we learned about unborn babies. We learned that before a baby is born it gets its food through a tube and that if anything happens to that tube - if it gets twisted or pinched in certain ways - the baby simply starves to death or suffocates. The baby that would have been our second sister was just too active, mom said. She twisted and turned until she finally pinched that tube and no food could get through it. We didn't understand all the details, but mom said that she didn't either. She also said that she was through with crying, that she would never cry again. She said it like a joke, like it was |