When my little sister was born, Meredith brought me to meet her first.
“Come see your sister,” she said.
That small gesture reassured me that I still mattered.
Two years later, when my brother arrived, I helped with bottles and diapers while Meredith caught her breath.
By twenty, I thought I understood my story. One mother who gave her life for mine. One father taken by a random accident. One stepmother who stepped up and held everything together.
Simple.
But the quiet questions never stopped.
I’d stare at my reflection.
“Do I look like him?” I asked Meredith one evening as she washed dishes.
“You have his eyes,” she said.
“And her?”
She dried her hands slowly. “Her dimples. And that curly hair.”
There was a careful tone in her voice—like she was measuring every word.
That unease followed me to the attic later that night. I went looking for the old photo album. It used to sit on a shelf in the living room, but it had disappeared years ago. Meredith had said she stored it to keep the photos from fading.
I found it in a dusty box.
Sitting cross-legged on the floor, I flipped through pictures of my dad when he was young. He looked carefree.
In one photo, he held my biological mother.