I was seven when my world ended. One moment I was coloring in the backseat; the next, I woke up in a hospital bed and was told my parents weren’t coming back. My sister Amelia was only twenty-one.
She had a fiancé, college plans, a future ready to begin. She set it all aside and became my everything—my sister, my mother, my protector.
She worked two jobs, packed my lunches, helped with homework, and never missed a school play or scraped knee. She never dated. Never built a life of her own.
When I married and moved out, she came by every day. At first it felt comforting. Then it felt suffocating.
One afternoon, exhausted and overwhelmed, I snapped. “I’m not your child. Go start your own family and let me breathe.”
She nodded quietly and left.
Weeks passed. Then months. No calls. No messages. The guilt ate at me.
One rainy morning, I drove to her apartment. The door was unlocked. Inside were boxes, pastel ribbons, and tiny baby clothes scattered everywhere. My heart stopped—until she looked up and smiled.
She told me she’d been fostering a shy five-year-old girl who’d lost her parents in an accident, just like we had. She was waiting for the adoption to be approved.
“She needed a home,” Amelia said softly. “And I thought I could give her what I gave you.”
A small face peeked from behind the couch, clutching a teddy bear.
My sister hadn’t broken.
She had rebuilt her heart—by giving it away again.
