I cut in. “It’s our mom’s handwriting,” I said. “And besides, I’m her big sister, and I’m twenty. Mom asked me to come here with her. In loco parentis. Can we please just sit down?”

We found seats next to each other in the waiting room. They deflated like sighs as we sat down. The whole room was stark and blank and smelled of acid.

“What are you looking at?” I said to a guy across the aisle who was staring at us. He buried his face in a magazine.

Alex was sucking the end of her hair, that nervous habit she’d developed after our lives turned to hell.

“How far along are you?” I asked gently. I didn’t even know this much. She’d refused to speak to me in the days leading up to this.

“Six weeks.”

“Have you told Tommy?”

Silence.

“You can’t just let him off the hook, sis. And he deserves to know. This is his fault, too.”

Her eyes did that thing again, turning from sadness to red-hot anger in a flash. “If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s yours,” she said.

“Mine?” I felt like I’d just been slapped.

“If you hadn’t—” Just then her name was called, and she stood. “Don’t come with me. I’ll do this on my own. Like with everything else.”

She walked away from me then, and I was left in the waiting room, sweating. Why on earth did she feel this was my fault? Because I’d been caught up in my own world and didn’t really notice what was going on with her? Because our parents had practically disowned me? Because I was a ghost living in their house?

I sat miserably, staring at the shoes of the other people in the clinic. Were all the paths they trod as bumpy as mine?

The abortion was quick. She walked out on her own, refusing my help, her own arms wrapped around herself. All the way home in the truck, she stared out the window, looking both younger and older than she had on the ride in. What had happened to my little sister? Was it that day in the clinic or years earlier that she had disappeared? Guilt made me nauseated. I’d let her down. Again.

I parked in the driveway and got out of the truck. Mom was on the porch squirreling one hand over the other. Something was very wrong.

“Mom?” I asked. Alex got out of the truck slowly. Mom was crying when she went to Alex and opened her arms.

“My little tiger, I am sorry. I am so, so sorry. I didn’t realize. I really didn’t know.” Mom cried on Alex’s shoulder, her breath coming out in rakes. Alex’s arms went around her, and she began crying, too.

“Mom!” I said, stepping closer. “What’s going on?”