The independent test was arranged through the process Nora and Tom had been asked to follow.
There were more forms.
More instructions.
More waiting.
I answered every question I was asked, even when I felt as though I were moving through the day without being fully present.
I wanted the test completed as quickly as possible.
At the same time, I was afraid of what a confirmed result would mean.
If Ellie was Lucy, then the story I had been told in the hospital was incomplete.
If she wasn't, I would still have to live with the knowledge that my grief had made me vulnerable to a possibility I could barely imagine.
Neither outcome felt easy.
Nora understood.
She never told me to calm down or reminded me that we needed to be patient.
She was struggling with the same uncertainty.
Sometimes she called just to check on me.
Sometimes I called her because I couldn't bear to sit with my thoughts alone.
We didn't have answers.
We had each other.
That had been true since childhood, and I found myself relying on it again.
I thought about our childhood more often during those days.
Nora had always been the one who tried to make things better.
When I was upset, she brought me something to eat or sat beside me until I was ready to talk.
When she was upset, I tried to do the same for her.
Neither of us was particularly good at solving the other's problems.
We were simply good at staying.
Now we were both facing something neither of us could solve by being patient or kind.
The answer had to come from the records and the test.
Until then, we had to live with the question.
I visited Nora and Tom once while we were waiting.
I wasn't sure whether I should go.
Part of me worried that seeing Ellie would make the uncertainty harder to bear.
Another part of me knew that staying away would be unfair to her.
She hadn't done anything wrong.
She was still the same child who liked her hair tied into pigtails and wanted the ribbons arranged just so.
So I went.
Nora opened the door and hugged me.
She held on for a second longer than usual.
Neither of us mentioned the envelope.
From the next room, I heard Ellie talking to Tom.
She was explaining something with the serious confidence of a five-year-old who believed the details were important.
Then she came into the hall.
"Auntie Claire!"
She ran toward me.
I bent down and hugged her.
Her arms tightened around my neck.
I held her gently, trying not to let the questions in my mind change the way I treated her.
She pulled away and looked at me.
"Can you do my hair?"
I smiled.
"Of course."
She led me to a chair.
Nora watched from the doorway while I carefully worked through the dark curls.
The ribbons lay on the table beside us.
Ellie talked while I brushed her hair.
She told me about something she had done with Tom and asked whether I would come again soon.
I answered as naturally as I could.
"Yes, sweetheart. I'll come again."
She nodded, satisfied.
I tied the first pigtail.
Then the second.
I checked that neither was too tight.
Ellie inspected my work in the mirror.
She seemed pleased.
I felt a sharp ache, but I kept my hands steady.
I had spent years imagining what it would have been like to do these things for Lucy.
Now I was doing them for Ellie.
The resemblance made the moment painful.
It also made it precious.
I didn't want to turn away from a child simply because she reminded me of someone I had lost.
That would have been another kind of loss.
When Ellie ran off to show Tom her hair, Nora sat beside me.
For a moment, we watched the ribbons disappear around the corner.
Then she spoke quietly.
"I keep thinking about how much you two look alike."
I looked down at the brush in my hand.
"I noticed it the first day."
"Especially her smile."
I nodded.
Neither of us said Lucy's name.
We didn't need to.
Nora took the brush from me and placed it on the table.
"I love her so much, Claire."
Her voice was steady, but her eyes were wet.
"I know."
"I don't want you to think that anything about this changes that."
I turned toward her.
"I don't think that."
She looked relieved, though only a little.
"I waited so long."
"I know you did."
"And now I feel guilty for being frightened."
I reached for her hand.
"You don't have to feel guilty for being frightened."
She looked at me.
"I don't want to lose her."
The words hurt because I understood them.
I also understood that the question wasn't simply about what had happened five years earlier.
It was about what would happen now.
Ellie had become Nora and Tom's daughter through an adoption they believed had been based on accurate information.
They loved her.
She loved them.
Whatever the test revealed, none of that could be erased by a line on a report.
I squeezed Nora's hand.
"We don't know what this means yet."
She nodded.
"And whatever the answer is, Ellie still needs us to think about what's best for her."
Nora wiped her cheek.
"You're right."
I wasn't sure I was right about everything.
But I knew that much.
A child couldn't be expected to understand the weight of a medical record or the meaning of an old hospital file.
She needed adults who would make decisions carefully.
She needed love that didn't disappear when the truth became complicated.
I wanted to be one of those adults.
When I left that afternoon, Ellie called after me from the doorway.
"Bye, Auntie Claire!"
I turned and waved.
She was smiling.
That dimple appeared again.
I drove home slowly.
I thought about Nora's words.
I don't want to lose her.
I knew my sister wasn't saying that she wanted to keep me from the truth.
She was admitting that the life she had finally built felt threatened by something she couldn't control.
I couldn't blame her for that.
I had spent five years fearing the loss of a child I thought was gone.
Now I was afraid of what I might learn about her.
It was a different kind of fear, but it came from the same place.
Love made us vulnerable.
That had always been true.
I simply hadn't expected to learn it twice through the same little girl.
Click here to continue reading: PART 7: Every Time My Phone Lit Up, I Thought the Answer Had Arrived, Until I Realized How Much We Had Already Changed
My Sister Came to My Kitchen With an Envelope, and the First Thing She Said Made Me Fear the Worst
Part 6 of 12
