Due to our parents' personal circumstances, I was placed in foster care while she continued to live with them. We were three years apart; whenever I saw her, I took on a protective, caring role. I remember a photograph of us sitting together in an oversized brown leather chair.
I grinned as I held my little sister tight, her head slightly turned away from the camera. She had huge, deep brown eyes and bows in her hair. We played together whenever we saw each other, running from room to room and giggling under my foster parents’ huge maple-wood dining table.
After my adoption became final when I was 6, she disappeared, staying with my biological parents, whom I barely knew. I was left alone, and I kept searching for her. I missed the little girl in the photograph.
I asked my adoptive mother, “Mommy, where is she? When is she coming back?” “She is not allowed to visit anymore,” she said, lowering her eyes before returning to scrubbing the pan in front of her. I looked for her in other ways.
I checked yearbooks, hoping I might find her in another grade or class. But closed adoption records meant I had no way to find out where she was. Over the years, I typed her name into Google repeatedly, even after I moved across the country, away from our California hometown.
After decades of my searches yielding no results, one day I found her contact information online. I leaned over my laptop and spelled her name aloud to make sure I had the right person. I was thrilled that we could finally become sisters again, but I also feared what I might find.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
