A fifth grader going on the age of fifty, she’d put her longing for a sister on the shelf. There hadn’t been time to mourn. She’d had her hands full with the miserable social aspects of her latter elementary years and an academic workload that would have challenged Einstein. Her parents had moved from town to town every few years, forever chasing and never catching new dreams, better jobs, greener grass.

And then, out of the blue, her mom and dad—never the masters of birth control—had experienced their second unplanned pregnancy. At first when they told her they were expecting a baby, she’d responded like any self-respecting preteen: with mortification. But after she’d had time to get used to the idea, the old yearning for a blond little sister had stirred back to life.

Her parents had waited to find out the sex of their baby. And so, when Leah had finally entered her mom’s hospital room to meet her new sibling, excitement had bounced around inside her body like a pinball. Dad informed her that if the baby was wearing pink, it was a girl. If the baby was wearing blue, it was a boy.

Leah approached the little plastic box on wheels where the baby was sleeping. Long before she was close enough to determine the color of the baby’s clothing beneath the blankets, she read the sign stuck to the inside of the baby’s bed. It’s a boy!

Mom and Dad’s gender reveal plan had been spoiled by an obvious sign they’d failed to notice.

Benevolently, she acted surprised when she pulled the baby’s blanket down and revealed blue.

Leah sat in the room’s window seat, and Dad rested her tiny brother in her lap.

He was beautiful. A mini nose, a perfect doll mouth, slightly bulgy closed eyes. She peeked under his cap and found lots of dark, silky hair.

Overtaken with wonder, she’d hugged him against herself. In that moment, it hadn’t mattered that he wasn’t a girl or that he wasn’t blond.

He was hers.

She was no longer alone with her erratic parents.

She’d found her person.

Love had vibrated through every cell of her adolescent self. And over the seventeen years since, that love had proven deep and staunch, the most unchanging aspect of her life.

Her relationship with Dylan was forged of much stronger stuff than blood. She’d been there for every important moment of his life. For the last decade, she’d been his caregiver.

Shared history. Love in action. Those are the things that family relationships are made of. She would, forever and always, continue to be Dylan’s sister. But until this DNA test, she’d trusted in the fact that she was Dylan’s biological sister. She’d wanted, very much, to continue to be Dylan’s biological sister.