Giftchild Read Free

the quiet of sitting in comfortable silence with someone who wanted you around. This was the good kind of quiet—the kind Rodney and I made together. That kind always made me feel better, no matter what.
    And since adoption day was coming, that might be the only kind of quiet I could find for a while.
     
    Mom didn't call that night, though Dad did send me a steady stream of update texts. Through the night and the next day at school, I checked my phone obsessively. Lily was at a three, a five, a seven. They were giving her an epidural. She was pushing. The baby was born. Mom got to hold her. Mom was already calling her Anna—the name she and my dad had picked.
    As the updates came, I tried to breathe through the anxiety. Nothing was final until the paperwork was signed.
    Then Anna would really be ours.
    It took until the next evening before Mom called to tell me they were ready for me to come meet my baby sister. I would have been happy to wait until Anna officially came home, but Mom wanted nice, professional-looking pictures of Anna and Lily at the hospital, and I wasn't going to tell her no.
    "Can Rodney bring you?" Mom asked.
    I rolled my eyes. She'd already forgotten where I was supposed to be, and who I was supposed to be with.
    Oh well. At least if Mom had forgotten the plan, I wouldn't get in trouble for not following it exactly. "Athena will drive me," I said. "I already asked her."
    "Right," Mom said. "Thank you. I knew I could count on you."
     
    Athena did drop me off, but she parked at the curb with the engine running.
    "Are you sure you won't come with me?" I asked her.
    Athena's hands hung limp on the wheel. "I will if you need me to."
    It was Mom who might need her, not me. I hadn't seen her since she left the house, but I couldn't imagine she was any less of a mess. "Don't you want to meet our new sister?"
    Athena shrugged. "I'll wait until the paperwork is done."
    I fiddled with my lens cap, twisting it round and round. That's what Mom should have done, too. But she always charged in, wanting to be there for every possible minute, in case this was the child that would, at last, be hers. "This time will be different," I said. "Lily's almost part of the family."
    "I know," Athena said. "That's what I'm worried about."
    We'd only known Lily for two months, since she chose Mom and Dad to be the adoptive parents of her unborn baby. In the four weeks since Athena moved into the dorms, Lily had hung around our house more than Athena. She and Mom had negotiated an open adoption with visitation and everything, so after she signed the papers, she'd always be part of our lives.
    Athena wouldn't say so, but I was pretty sure she'd stayed away partly because of Lily. Lily might be more likely to go through with the adoption because she got to be more involved than the other girls had, but she also had more power to hurt Mom. If Lily backed out, Mom would have two holes in her life to fill, instead of just one.
    When I opened the car door, Athena gave me a worried look. "Are you sure you want to do this?" she asked.
    "Yeah, of course," I said. "Mom asked me to."
    Athena sighed. "I just don't think it's fair of her to do this to you."
    I squeezed my camera. "I'm fine," I said. "If you need to worry about someone, worry about Mom."
    "Okay," Athena said. But she didn't look convinced.
    I took the elevator up to the maternity ward and gave them my name and pass phrase through the courtesy phone. The door buzzed, and I pushed it open.
    Dad sat in the front waiting room. He stood and came over to me, giving me a hug. "Is Mom doing okay?" I asked.
    Dad made a wobbling motion with his hand, which was pretty much a non-answer. "She and Lily are in with the baby."
    "Anna," I said.
    Dad nodded. "When the paperwork's final." He cringed. "But don't tell your mother I said that."
    He knew I wouldn't. "Are they signing tonight?"
    "That's the plan."
    I sighed. I wished he'd talk about it with more confidence, if only for Mom's sake. She