“I’m sorry,” Natalie said, looking chastised. “We don’t have to talk about it.”
“No,” Brooke said. “I’m sorry. I’m just not used to discussing it. I tend to keep my past to myself.” Natalie kept her eyes on Brooke but didn’t respond, seemingly waiting to see if her sister would go on. “I don’t have any particular horror stories,” Brooke finally said. “No one beat me or burned me with cigarettes or locked me in a closet, which did happen to more than one of the kids I knew. I just didn’t fit in anywhere. I didn’t fit in with anyone. By the time I hit ninth grade, Gina stopped trying to place me in a foster home altogether, and I just lived at Hillcrest, going to school and biding my time until I aged out of the system. I started working in restaurants as a dishwasher and hostess when I was sixteen, then ended up cocktailing as soon as I turned twenty-one. I’ve been at it ever since.” Brooke’s muscles had been tense when she began to speak, but by the time she had finished, she felt lighter, and her body softer. The knot in her stomach had loosened. She hadn’t spoken to anyone like this since she had lived with Claire. She had forgotten the relief that honesty could bring.
“You’ve never been married?” Natalie hadn’t taken her eyes off Brooke, and appeared to be sincerely interested in her older sister’s story. Brooke searched her face for any sign of pity but found none.
“Nope,” she said. She imagined saying that she was pregnant, then immediately decided against it. At this point, there was only so much about herself she would reveal.
“Not the marrying kind?”
Brooke laughed, thinking how much more convoluted her reasons for not being able to fully commit to a relationship were. “I guess not,” she said. “I like to keep things simple.”
“I hope meeting me isn’t too complicated,” Natalie said, with a touch of worry.
“I don’t think so,” Brooke said. “At least, not so far.” She hoped the lightness in her tone conveyed to Natalie that she was joking.
“What about meeting Kyle and the kids?” Natalie asked. “Would you be up for that?”
Brooke wondered if she had it in her to navigate interacting with Natalie’s family. “I don’t want to impose. Or make anyone uncomfortable.”
“You won’t,” Natalie said. “It’s a little over Henry’s head, but I know Hailey would be thrilled to have a new aunt.”
Her baby would have cousins, Brooke thought. An aunt and uncle of its own. “Are you sure?”
“Of course,” Natalie said. “Why don’t you come over to our house for dinner next week? Nothing fancy, just the five of us. We’ll keep it casual. Is there a night that works best for you?”
“I usually have Wednesdays off,” Brooke said.
“Perfect. I’ll text you our address and we’ll see you then. Seven o’clock?”
Brooke paused, trying to fight off the sense of apprehension brewing in her chest. What if Natalie’s husband and the kids didn’t like her? What if they met her and convinced Natalie that they shouldn’t have a relationship? But the bright, optimistic look on her sister’s face was too contagious to resist. “Seven o’clock,” she repeated, and after that, she knew there was no excuse to be made.
Natalie
Monday night, a few days after Natalie’s second meeting with Brooke, Natalie and Kyle lay in bed discussing the idea of telling their children that Natalie was adopted and about the sister she never knew she had.
“It’s your news to tell,” Kyle said, “but are you sure they’re old enough to hear it?”
“I think so,” Natalie said, appreciating Kyle’s deference, especially considering his reservations about Brooke. “I know of one adopted kid in Hailey’s class, so it’s not like they haven’t been exposed to it. It’s treated so differently now than it was when I was growing up. It’s out in the open. Talked about. Nothing to be ashamed of.”
“I hate that you felt ashamed,” he said, tenderly. He tangled his fingers with hers, and Natalie remembered the night when she’d first told him that she was adopted. It was their fourth date, and Kyle had taken her to a small French bistro on Lake Union, where they looked out over the water, sipping champagne and telling each other stories about how they’d grown up.
“I always wanted a sibling,” Natalie said. “Being an only child can get pretty lonely.”
“I wish my brother and I were closer,” Kyle said.
“Why aren’t you?” In all her childhood fantasies about having a brother or sister, Natalie never imagined anything but the two of them being the best of friends.
“A lot of reasons.” Kyle set down his glass and linked his fingers together on the table, as though in prayer. “He’s four years older than me, so he likes to boss me around. I put up with it when I was a kid, but when I hit junior high, I started challenging him and he didn’t like it. We had some pretty epic fights. He broke my nose, twice, and I gave him more than one black eye.”