Are You My Sister? an adoption story Read online

  “I can’t do that,” Mom replied. “What if something happens? I’m not sure you would know what to do. I can’t leave Kris with anyone just yet. You know that.”

  She did know. And so did I. Kris could have problems with her heart, and then what? Calling 911 might not be enough.

  So Holly started thumbing through the dresses.

  “I guess they’re not so bad,” she offered. “Right, Sandy?”

  Mom looked relieved.

  “Sandy, why don’t you and Holly find your sizes, and I’ll find one for Kris.”

  I had to admit that the dresses were kind of pretty especially on Holly whose hair was long and blond. Blue wasn’t exactly my color, but I loved the way the dress looked on Kris because it made the blue in her eyes really stand out. I’d already seen Jen’s sleeveless dress so I asked Mom if she could remove my sleeves and maybe Holly’s.

  She agreed, and we left the store to find a restaurant in the food court.

  Thankfully, Mom quit asking me how I was feeling.

  Chapter 4

  I thought of Sarah often within the next couple of weeks, but I kept my promise not to mention a word to anyone, not even Holly. Everyone was preoccupied with the graduation plans. All of the eighth grade teachers were stressing final exams, past-due library books, and the dreaded cleaning-out of the lockers. I had plenty to think about. As if I needed anything else.

  And then she called.

  I was home alone. Mom had taken Kris to see her cardiologist for the umpteenth time, and Holly had gone with them. I was trying to motivate myself to study for my last exam in the morning when the phone rang.

  “Is Mrs. Robeson there?” the female voice asked.

  “She’s not available right now,” I answered. “Would you like to leave a message?”

  She paused briefly and then said, “No, I don’t think so. Do you know when she will be in?”

  I knew Mom had a 4:30 appointment and would probably be home by six, but I didn’t want to give the caller too much information.

  “I’m not sure, but I can ask her to call you.”

  “Well, okay,” she said. “My name is Sarah, and my number is—“

  “Your name is Sarah?” I interrupted.

  “Sarah Hall,” she said. “Are you writing this down?”

  “No,” I stammered. “I mean, yes, I can if you want me to.”

  That’s when I dropped the receiver.

  “Wait a minute,” I yelled as I retrieved the phone. “I’m sorry. I dropped the phone. I’m so sorry.”

  “Are you Mrs. Robeson’s daughter?” the woman asked.

  I wanted to ask if she was Mrs. Robeson’s daughter.

  “Yes,” I answered.

  “Oh, really? I wondered,” she said as her voice trailed off.

  I only had a second to think about it, and I was certain that I could regret it later, but I just had to ask.

  “Are you my sister?”

  It seemed as though the silence that followed went on forever. I could hardly breathe just waiting for her to answer.

  “You know about me?”

  “No, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I asked.” Oh, my gosh, I thought. What have I done? Mom will be furious. Jen will never speak to me again. Holly will wonder….

  “It’s okay,” she said.

  “No, you don’t understand. Mom doesn’t know that I know. If she found out—“

  “She won’t find out, not from me anyway. Please. Please calm down, okay?”

  I didn’t know if I could calm down. In a way, I was relieved, but the reality was that I wasn’t supposed to know the secret, and here I was speaking to the secret. How in the world was Mom going to react to this?

  “Can we just pretend this didn’t happen?” I asked her.

  “If that’s what you want,” she replied.

  But it wasn’t what I wanted, not really. I knew what it was to have a sister. Holly had been my best friend from the day she was born. I adored our precious little Kris who spoke volumes about love, affection, and acceptance without speaking a word. I just couldn’t turn my back on Sarah.

  “I didn’t really mean that. I’m sorry. I don’t want to get in trouble. My dad is going to be home soon and I….”

  “I understand,” she said. “Could we talk again?”

  “I don’t know. My mom is usually here.”

  “Do you have a cell phone?”

  “I’m hoping Mom will get me one next year.”

  “What about an e-mail address? Do you have one?”

  “Yes, but what if—“

  “Will you write to me? Do you have a pen? Write this down, okay?”

  So I wrote her e-mail address on a sheet of paper and stuffed it into my pocket. When Mom came home, I asked her if I could have a cell phone.

  Chapter 5

  After dinner that night, I remembered that I had Sarah’s e-mail address in my pocket. Holly agreed to do the dishes (even though it was my turn) so I could go upstairs and study. But studying wasn’t what I intended to do.

  I sat down in front of my computer and pondered whether or not I should e-mail Sarah. The ball was in my court, so to speak, since I had her e-mail address but she didn’t have mine. I convinced myself that this was no different from corresponding with Jen or some of the other girls from school. But in this case, I wouldn’t ask too much and I wouldn’t offer too much either.

  I made my first e-mail very short; it dawned on me that I had not given her my name, so I made a point of including that. I told her I had two sisters, three counting her. And that’s all I said.

  It wasn’t reasonable to expect her to answer right away, but when she didn’t, I checked her e-mail address a second time to make sure I had entered it in correctly. I must have checked my inbox six or seven times before I finally went to bed; she didn’t answer.

  The next day I couldn’t wait to talk with Jen. She met me as usual at my house so we could walk to school together, our last day in the eighth grade. Luckily, Mom had agreed to drop Holly off on her way to the grocery store. I was still feeling apprehensive about excluding Holly from the “secret,” but I was glad that I could talk with Jen privately.

  “I e-mailed her,” I said.

  “Who?” Jen asked.

  “Sarah. I e-mailed Sarah.”

  “What? How? Oh, my gosh.”

  “She called yesterday while Mom was at the doctor’s office with Kris.”

  “Does your mom know about this?”

  “No, and don’t forget we pinky-swore. You can’t tell anyone.”

  She agreed and then asked if I was planning to meet Sarah in person. And seriously, I had not thought that far ahead.

  “I’m not even sure I should be e-mailing her. But, yes, I would like to meet her—someday.”

  “Then why don’t you?” Jen suggested.

  “How would I do that? I’d have to tell her where I live. She can’t come to my house.”

  I could almost see the wheels turning in her head.

  “You could meet her at the mall. Next week. Your mom and my mom know we’re going to be spending a lot of time at the mall this summer anyway.”

  I wasn’t sure this was a good idea. Even though Sarah was technically my sister, was it really okay to meet someone I didn’t really know? Besides, she might live hundreds of miles away. If so, I could not possibly travel to see her.

  My curiosity was stronger than my sense, so I agreed to the plan. I told Jen I would wait though until after Sarah and I had been communicating for a couple of weeks before I would ask her about meeting me.

  That afternoon, Jen and I returned home anxious to get to my computer. The computer lab at school had been closed the last week of school, so I couldn’t use a computer there. While all the other kids were jubilant about this being our last day of school, all I could think about was getting home so I could check my e-mail.

  She wrote me back! She was a
lot more forthcoming than I had been in my email. She told me she had one brother, also adopted. Her dad was a lawyer, and her mom was an animal activist who was especially interested in protecting exotic animals like cougars and monkeys. For some reason, I hadn’t given much thought to her “other” family—she had another mother, another father, and a brother who didn’t look anything like her.

  I started thinking about Holly. This situation had already gotten too far without my having confided in her. I felt bad about that, but I also realized that I might need an ally down the road.

  “Jen, I think I should tell Holly.”

  “Yeah, you’re not going to be able to keep it from her for very much longer anyway.”

  “I’ll tell her after the graduation party tomorrow night.”

  Chapter 6

  The eighth grade graduation from my school was scheduled on Saturday morning at the high school auditorium where all the district graduations were taking place. Unfortunately, my school’s graduation was first on the schedule which meant that we had to be at the auditorium and in our places by 7:30 a.m.

  Any Saturday morning was chaotic at our house, especially if any one of us had to be any place special at an early hour. But this day was especially trying. Mom had moved Holly out of her room and into my room so Gran could spend the night in her room. I didn’t mind really, but we had to share my bed with Kris, we argued over counter space in the bathroom, and then Mom, who was “running late,” asked me to fix Kris’s hair.

  While the three of us girls stood in my bathroom, Kris on the lid of the commode, I saw our reflections in the large mirror over the sink. There we were, three blue peas in a pod. I could see Holly was horrified by our collective image.

  “I can’t believe that Mom is making us wear these dresses!” she said.

  “It’s okay,” I answered. “We only have to wear them just this one day, and then hopefully, we’ll outgrow them by the time Gran reminds Mom that we never had the picture made.”

  I grabbed a brush and started on Kris’s thin blond hair. I collected as many stray strands as I could and bound them with a tiny rubber band. She handed me one of her matching blue ribbons, so I tucked it securely under the rubber band and then tied it into a bow.

  “There you go, precious,” I said.

  At almost two years of age, and developmentally slow, Kris couldn’t talk yet. But she made her desires known usually by gesturing or showing us what she wanted. She didn’t have any trouble “telling” Mom that she wanted the sleeves on her dress removed just like mine and Holly’s. She wanted her dress to look exactly like ours, so when she tried to put one of her blue ribbons in my hair, I knew exactly what she wanted. I grabbed a larger rubber band and fixed my light brown hair into a matching ponytail. Kris smiled broadly and clapped her short little hands. She looked at Holly, but Holly wasn’t enthused.

  “I’m not wearing my hair in a ponytail! Forget it! Not happening!” she said as she stomped out of the bathroom.

  I hoisted Kris onto my hip and followed Holly into the bedroom.

  “If you do this one thing,” I told her, “I’ll make it worth your while. We don’t even have to have ponytails—we can do something else.”

  She must have missed the part about wearing our hair a different way.

  “You’re going to make it worth my while?” she asked.

  I surveyed the bedroom to see if there was anything with which I could bribe her. But it was getting late, and I knew I’d have to hurry. I had, in times past, regretted promising to give her something of mine in exchange for whatever I wanted her to do for me. And then I remembered Sarah.

  “If you do this,” I said, “I’ll have a surprise for you after the graduation party tonight.”

  At twelve years of age, Holly wasn’t as easy to bribe as she used to be. But I was very confident that I could persuade her to wear the ribbon if I told her I had an important secret to share with her. And I was right.

  Holly, Kris, and I left my room in our matching blue dresses, matching hairstyles, and matching blue ribbons, but only Kris and I were smiling.

  Mom was delighted with our appearance, and Dad was amazed since he knew how Holly felt about the dresses.

  “How did you manage the matching hair?” he whispered in my ear.

  I thought of telling him that I would tell him later, but I knew I couldn’t.

  Chapter 7

  The graduation ceremony lasted only a little more than an hour, luckily, because Holly was getting hungry and I wanted to get home to check my e-mail. Mom was worried about our getting our dresses dirty so it was easy to convince her that we should hurry home. After that, Gran agreed and reminded us all that we still had to have our pictures taken in the dresses. Holly groaned, and Dad gave his don’t-say-a-thing look at the both of us.

  Gran made pancakes and sausage while the three of us girls went upstairs to change. Holly hadn’t forgotten my promise, so when we closed my bedroom door, she started right in.

  “Why can’t you tell me now?” she asked. “I don’t think I can wait until after the party tonight.”

  “Holly, a deal is a deal,” I tried to persuade her. “I’ll tell you after.”

  “Why?” she said.

  “Because this is the biggest secret ever and I don’t know how you will take it. I can’t risk your wigging out before the party. Mom will have a fit.”

  She leaned forward and pulled Kris to her chest.

  “Is it Kris? Is something wrong with Kris?”

  “No, but it’s pretty big. In a good way. I think,” I answered.

  Well, that’s all it took. Holly badgered me firmly for the next ten minutes, and she wouldn’t stop looking at me the entire time we were eating Gran’s pancakes. I was almost relieved when Mom asked me to take Kris upstairs, get her washed up, and then try “really hard” to get her to take a nap.

  I tucked Kris in my bed, but she wanted me to lie down next to her, so I closed the blinds and climbed right in. She put her soft little hand on my face and then drifted off in a way I could only imagine angels might fall asleep. I smoothed her hair away from her forehead, said a prayer that God would protect her and keep her healthy, and then kissed the top of her head as gently as I could.

  That’s when Holly came in. I gave her the be-quiet sign so she closed the door without making a sound. I motioned her to sit on the end of the bed.

  “Mom wants Kris to sleep,” I whispered. “We can’t talk about the secret just now.”

  “Pl-e-e-a-s-e,” she sang.

  My left arm was tucked under Kris’s shoulders and I was afraid to move it. I wasn’t sure that she was sleeping soundly yet, and I didn’t want to take any chances. Once awake, she probably wouldn’t go back to sleep the rest of the day, and we would have one cranky baby on our hands at the graduation party.

  I looked at Holly’s pitiful face once more and concluded that the rest of the day including the graduation party could be undeniably miserable for me unless I relented.

  So I did.

  “You have to pinky-swear that you won’t tell anyone,” I warned her.

  She moved in closer to Kris and me so that we could hook our pinky fingers.

  “I pinky-swear,” she said.

  “Holly, this is the biggest secret I’ve ever told anyone. It’s the biggest secret that anyone has ever told me. I’m not supposed to know it, and neither are you. No matter what happens, we can’t tell anyone, especially Mom.”

  “Okay,” she responded.

  “And you can’t get excited or anything,” I cautioned her. “And if you wake up Kris, I’ll be mad.”

  “Okay,” she insisted.

  “Jen told me—“

  “This is Jen’s secret?” she interrupted.

  “No, it’s our secret. It’s really Mom’s secret because it happened to her before she and Dad got married. She just didn’t tell anyone. And then one day, she told Mrs. Harris and Jen was listen
ing, and then Jen told me.”

  I could tell Holly was getting frustrated.

  “What is the secret?” she asked.

  “Well,” I started slowly, “you know how….”

  And then I stopped. I wasn’t sure I was doing the right thing. I had no doubts of my own right to know that I had another sister out there. But it was, after all, Mom’s secret—did I have the right to share it? Sarah is Holly’s sister, too. She is Kris’s sister. Mom’s first daughter. We’re a family, right? We shouldn’t be hiding anything, right?

  So I just said it.

  “Holly,” I said, “Mom had another child before us. Before she married Dad. Her name is Sarah, and she’s seventeen.”

  Holly’s jaw dropped. It took a few seconds before she started speaking.

  “Are you sure?” she asked.

  “Jen said she heard Mom tell Mrs. Harris.”

  I could see that Holly was thinking hard.

  “Maybe that’s what that phone call was about,” she said.

  I immediately thought of Mom’s call that day in the kitchen when she said she just couldn’t “handle this right now.”

  “You know about the call?” I asked.

  “I was there,” she replied.

  “Wait,” I said realizing she wasn’t talking about the same phone call I had overheard. “Which phone call are you talking about?”

  “Well,” she began, “someone called Mom a couple of months ago. I think she was talking to a lady. She was talking about something that happened a long time ago, that her life had taken a different direction. Mom told her she wasn’t ready for something—I don’t know what.”

  “Oh, gosh,” I said. “I wonder if that was Sarah.”

  That’s when I told her about the day I talked with Sarah on the phone and that I had an e-mail message from her in my inbox.

  “If that was Sarah, and if Mom isn’t ready to see her, then would she want you to be e-mailing her?” Holly asked.

  She carefully left the bed and sat down at my desk. In a few seconds, she was looking at Sarah’s message.

  And then she asked me the same thing Jen did earlier.

  “Are you going to meet her in person?”

  Chapter 8

  After Kris woke up, I took her downstairs because Mom wanted her to eat something before she dressed again for the party. Afterwards, I hurried back upstairs to answer Sarah’s e-mail though I wasn’t sure what I wanted to say.