That night Nonny looked pale. Paler than normal, which is saying a lot. Looking dangerously close to the gray-faced-nausea type of pale from before. She kept saying she was fine, but I could tell she wasn’t feeling well.
I boiled some water and made her some orange marmalade toast and herbal tea. Mom and Dad were out on a date together, but Mom had taught me how to make tea, even though I’d broken a couple of mugs in the beginning. Still, though, it was kind of strange being alone in the kitchen.
Nonny was lying on the couch, her eyes closed, her long dark hair draping down to the floor, and if I was a good artist I would have wanted to paint her. I think it was the orangey smell of the tea that made her look over at me, and she smiled. I was glad to see a touch of color in her cheeks when she did.
“Oh, you. You didn’t have to do that,” she said.
I put the mug and the plate of toast on the coffee table by the couch. Nonny curled herself up and I sat down at her feet. She took the mug in both hands and breathed in the steam and sighed when she took a sip.
“Thank you,” she said. “You’re my favorite sister.”
“I better be,” I said.
She took another sip and a bite of toast. After a minute she said, “I heard you went to the doctor today.”
I tucked my feet under me. “Yeah.”
“Usually you like the doctor.”
“Yeah.”
“But not this one?”
“I liked her a lot.”
Another sip of tea. This time I knew she was asking me a Silent Question.
“It’s weird…,” I said. I didn’t really know what exactly was bothering me. “It’s hard to explain.”
She kept going with the Silent Question.
“It’s like…,” I started. “It’s like they told me there’s something sort of controlling how I think. I mean, not exactly, but something at least kind of influencing the way I think. That … that’s weird. If … if that’s true, if something in my brain really is different, then I … I don’t know what’s me and what’s … controlling me.”
“I get that,” Nonny said. “But I don’t think they mean something’s inside your brain controlling you. It’s the way your particular brain is built. It’s you.”
“But it’s a different thing,” I said. “I mean, it means my brain works a certain way. A different way. So then, what if I didn’t have that thing? Wouldn’t that mean I’m a different person?”
“Then you’d be a different person,” Nonny said. “But you’re not.”
“I guess.”
Nonny put the mug back on the table and sat up taller. “Think of it this way. Tell me something you learned at school today.”
“Um … oh, we had an assembly about internet safety.”
“So your brain is already different today than it was yesterday, right?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“But you’re still you, right?”
I couldn’t help but smile. “Hey, no fair! Okay, you got me.”
“There you go,” Nonny said, and picked up her mug again.
I knew Nonny would understand. And I knew, without a doubt, that I would do whatever it took to give her this beautiful universe, this perfect baby. Sometimes, though, there were these what-ifs that shot across my mind like comets, flaring in and out. There were the normal what-ifs, like, What if something went wrong? But there were other what-ifs, too. Like, What if I was the perfect, best, most understanding aunt in the world for a niece who had Turner syndrome, too?
“Nonny?” I said.
She took a careful sip. “Hmm?”
“What if … what if the baby has a disorder?”
Nonny choked a little on her tea, but with someone as elegant as her, it was more a dainty cough.
“Have you been worrying about that?”
I pulled at loose threads in the hem of my shirt. Why was it so hard to think of the right thing to say at the times when saying the right thing was the most important? I could talk and talk for a long time about exciting things, but explaining what I really meant was different. “I mean … I wonder…”
Nonny put her mug on the table and put her hand on my knee. I glimpsed one of those particular furrows between her brow and it made her look like Mom.
I knew Nonny would love her baby more than life itself no matter what, because that was Nonny. And I knew that technically this baby wasn’t any more likely to have Turner syndrome just because I had it. But things could still go wrong. Things could still be hard. I didn’t want something making things harder for baby Cecilia or Nonny. I wanted things to be perfect.
“This baby is this baby,” Nonny said. “Whoever she is. And I’m her mother. That’s all there is to it.”
“And I’m her aunt,” I said.
Nonny smiled and the Mom-furrow relaxed. “Yes. Yes, you are.” Then she made another sick face for a split second, and I remembered.
“Oh wait,” I said. “I’m supposed to be making you feel better this time.”
I ran to Nonny’s bed and carried out her big quilt that smelled like her—like her lavender shampoo—and laid it across her lap.
“I have an idea,” she said. “I was too tired to read to Cecilia today, but how about you read to us?”
I bounced once on the couch. “Oh, I can read you the book we’re reading for school!”
“Which one’s that?”
“Charlotte’s Web.”
“Well, you are some girl,” Nonny said.
So I ran to my room and got my book from my backpack and came back to my seat by Nonny.
When I finished reading the chapter Nonny’s eyes were closed and her chest was rising and falling slowly. In sleep she looked less pained. Whatever it took, I would make sure she stayed that way. Her and baby Cecilia. Safe and happy and perfect. I stuck my feet under her quilt, laid my head on the other side of the couch, and closed my eyes, too.