At the clinic gate, a 7-year-old collapsed, crying, “Mommy has been sleeping for three days, please save them.” The doctor rushed to help the newborn twins, but as he lifted them, his hands shook. Underneath the babies was a handwritten note from the mother that made the doctor freeze in terror…

me as tightly as her broken body would allow, whispering promises into my tangled hair. We were alive. The coup had been successful.

But as I lay there listening to her heartbeat, a shadow crept into the back of my mind. The hospital would eventually discharge us. We had survived death, but how were we going to survive life? The blue house on the hill continue reading …