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I EVENTUALLY TOLD MASON ABOUT MY SIBLINGS

Not everything.

Just enough.

He found an old photograph in my desk.

Five children sitting on apartment steps.

Me at eight.

Lena seven.

Micah five.

Ben three.

Rosie a baby.

“Who are they?”

“My brothers and sisters.”

He looked at me.

“You have four?”

“Yes.”

“Where are they?”

That question never became easier.

“Different places.”

“Why?”

“We were separated when we were kids.”

His face changed.

“Like us?”

“Yes.”

He studied the photograph.

“Did you find them?”

“Some.”

That was the truth.

Lena and I had reconnected in our twenties.

Micah too.

Ben had struggled for years, then disappeared from everyone’s lives.

Rosie had eventually contacted me as an adult after accessing records.

We were not the family we had been.

We were four adults—and one absence—trying to build relationships from fragments.

Mason asked:

“Do you still love them?”

“Yes.”

“Even if you don’t live together?”

“Yes.”

He nodded.

Then:

“Do you love us?”

There are questions foster parents are trained to answer carefully.

I forgot every piece of training.

“Yes.”

Mason stared at me.

“You don’t know us.”

“I know.”

“That’s weird.”

“Extremely.”

He put the photograph back.

Then went outside.

I considered that conversation a success.