The hospital slowly disappeared in my rearview mirror while Nora slept beside me in her car seat.

For the first time in thirteen days, I finally let myself breathe.

Thirteen days in the NICU.

Thirteen days of sitting beside an incubator, listening to machines beep while nurses spoke in careful, gentle voices.

Thirteen nights of going home to an empty apartment.

Thirteen mornings of returning before sunrise.

And now my daughter was finally coming home.

Four pounds, eleven ounces.

Breathing on her own.

One tiny fist tucked beside her cheek.

I truly believed the worst was behind us.

I still think about how certain I was.

Nora had her father’s dark curls.

His small cleft chin.

And his eyes.

One was a clear, bright blue.

The other was so dark it almost looked black.

The doctors called it heterochromia.

Two different eye colors.

Unusual, but harmless.

“Someone else in the