I was seven when my parents died. One moment I was coloring in the backseat, the next I was waking up in a hospital bed being told they weren’t coming back. My sister Amelia was only twenty-one.
She had a fiancé, college plans, a future carefully mapped out. And in one night, she set it all aside for me.
She worked two jobs, packed my lunches, helped with homework, and sat through every school play and heartbreak. She never dated again. Never built a life of her own. She became my mother, my sister, my shield.
When I got married and moved out, she still came by every day. At first, it felt loving. Then it felt suffocating.
One exhausted afternoon, I snapped.
“I’m not your child. Go start your own family and let me breathe.”
The words crushed her. She nodded and left.
Weeks passed. Then months. No calls. No messages. Guilt ate at me.
One rainy morning, I drove to her flat. The door was unlocked. Inside, I froze—boxes everywhere, pastel ribbons, tiny baby clothes scattered across the floor. Panic hit me.
Then Amelia looked up, eyes wet, smiling softly.
“Surprise,” she said.
She told me she’d been fostering a quiet five-year-old girl who’d lost her parents in an accident—just like we had. She hadn’t told me until the adoption was certain.
“She needed a home,” Amelia whispered. “And I thought maybe 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’d rebuilt her heart—by giving it away again.
