I can see the birthmark on the back of her neck. Will we be in surgery together, ever? Surely so.
The buzz of people talking ebbs and flows around me. I chat and smile and listen as my body riots from the inside out.
And then it’s over, people turning toward the door. I smile and shake a few hands. Everyone starts filing out. I turn to follow…but I can’t move.
I can feel the heat of her behind me, feel the tug of her.
I step toward the door as the last of our colleagues slips through it.
I watch it shut.
Then I turn and look into the past.
One
Evie
September 4, 2006
Asheville, North Carolina
“But what if he doesn’t like Empire Strikes Back?” My sister Emmaline tilts her head up, looking at the poster we just hung. In her brand new, silky Princess Leia nightgown, she looks more like four than seven. She’s tiny for her age, and it’s late, so her little voice is wobbly with tiredness.
“Don’t worry, Em.” I smooth my palm over her blonde hair. “Everybody likes The Empire Strikes Back.”
“Not me.” She pokes her lower lip out. “I like A New Hope.”
“That’s just because you love the light sabers.”
She smiles, nodding, and I sift my fingers through her silky locks.
“I think he will want a light saber,” she says.
I smooth the poster down, then stick another push pin in the lower right corner. “Maybe so, but remember what Mom said. We’re going to feel it out before you give it to him. We don’t want him getting here and being overwhelmed the first day. He might be sad.”
“Like Mommy gets when the hospitalist is on vacation?”
I laugh at Emmaline’s goofy, wide-eyed look. “Just like that.”
Both our parents are doctors, so Em’s heard a lot of shop talk at the dinner table, such as last week, when our mom, a pediatric ear, nose, and throat surgeon, expressed frustration that another doctor—the hospitalist—was on vacation.
“What about Mommy?”
The bedroom door opens, and our mom’s tired but smiling face appears. I watch as her gaze sweeps the room, moving over the airplane-shaped bookshelf, the Crayola-red dresser, the two twin beds—now outfitted with navy blue spaceship duvets—the leather armchair from my dad’s old home office, and finally the longest wall, where Em and I have hung an Empire Strikes Back poster, a coat rack, and a wall-mounted shelf bearing four fun, electronic kid toys.
Mom gives us a bright smile. “Nice job, girls.”
“Evie said I have to wait to give him the light saber,” Em pouts.
“Just a little while,” my mom tells Emmaline, stepping fully into our new foster brother’s basement digs. “Remember what we talked about,” she says, scooping up Em. “We don’t know how he’ll feel when he gets here. So we want to give him space to settle.”
Em pokes her lip out again. “Okay.”
“Don’t be glum, chum.” My mom kisses her cheek. “You two rocked this room out. I can’t believe that three weeks ago it was a storage area.”
I laugh, wiping a strand of hair off my forehead. “I can.”
My mom winks at me over Em’s head, then wraps my sister closer to her. “I think it’s bedtime for you, my dear.”
Emmaline reaches for me. “One big hug, and one big kiss.”
I give her both, and Mom wiggles her eyebrows. “Come on back up soon, Ev.”
“I will.”
I’m a perfectionist, though. We’ve had foster siblings from all walks of life, but never one who’s been in as many homes, or had as many bad experiences, as this little boy has. He’s only 7—he’ll be in Em’s class at school—and he’s spent time in twelve homes, two of which he was removed from because of inappropriate behavior by the foster parents or siblings. His paperwork says he’s exceptionally bright. Bright enough to maybe go to college early. The agency my parents work with picked them out specifically because they both have several degrees.
I straighten his duvets one more time, and take a final spin back through the bathroom. His papers say that he’s a fan of Harry Potter, so we did the wallpaper in a wand pattern, the shower curtain featuring a scene of Hogwarts.
I bite my lip, remembering the Polaroid picture Mom and Dad showed us. Wherever he was standing—maybe in a doorway—there was a shadow over half of his face. I couldn’t see his eye color, but his hair looked light brown. His lips were in a straight line, his eyes striking and somber.
So different than Em.
The bathroom door creaks, and I jump. “Dad—good Lord! You scared me.”
For a surgeon who saws bones and re-breaks badly healed fractures, my dad is small and geeky-looking, with freckles on his nose, and round, black glasses. Once when we were at Universal Studios, someone mistook him for Rick Moranis, the dad in that old movie Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.
Tonight, he’s stripped off his button-down dress shirt and is wearing his white undershirt and pleat-front khakis. Underneath his arm is something round and white: a roll of trash bags, I realize.
His eyes move around the bathroom. “Y’all did a nice job, Ev. Looks real homey in here.”
My dad is soft-spoken and ultra nice, maybe a little too nice; that’s what mom says sometimes. He tears a small trash bag off the roll and leans over to put it in the trash can.
When he straightens up, he gives me a tired smile and ushers me from Landon’s bathroom back into his new room.
“You girls know how to make a place feel welcoming. You get that from your mama, I guess.”
“Thanks, Daddy.”
“Why don’t you come upstairs and head to bed? It’ll be a long day tomorrow, from the time he gets here.”
I nod, turn out the light, and walk upstairs alongside him.
“Do you think he’ll like it here?” I ask Dad in the kitchen.
My dad looks thoughtful. “I don’t know, green bean. Some do, some don’t. It’s more about them than us. You know that.”
“I know. I just hope he does.”
“You have a big heart, Evie. And that’s not a bad thing. The world needs more people who do. When you’re in our position, there’s a bigger obligation. Help the helpless, love the poor.” My dad pats me on the shoulder. “I know that you will. You’ve got a lot of goodness in you.”
I hug my super cheesy dad, then head upstairs, where I lie awake for a few minutes, feeling nervous for no reason I can think of.
The next morning, Emmaline is over the moon excited to meet her new, same-age “brother.” She wears her favorite Minnie Mouse dress, sparkly Mary Janes, and a pair of sticker earrings for what she expects will be a schoolyard meet-up. When she climbs into the car with mom, she’s bouncing with excitement. She squeals her goodbye to me as I walk out of the garage, where my parents park, and around to the circle driveway where my green Ford Focus waits.