Curled up in a little pile of blankets, is a baby girl. Rosy, puffy cheeks. A little pink bow around her tiny head. Bitty hands covered in mittens. Her eyes are open—bright green, just like Dad’s. Just like mine. She has his nose. That same all-knowing expression.

“What … what’s her name?” I hear myself whisper.

“Pearl,” Mae says. “After the Three Sisters.”

“Orion’s Belt.” Nate lays a hand on my arm. “A constellation. Also known as the Three Sisters. The Arabic name translates to ‘string of pearls.’” He sighs. “That was … nice of her. Rebecca.”

“Fuck Rebecca,” Mae surprises me by saying. “If this little girl, if Pearl, stands a chance of doing right by the miracle, she’s going to need us. Her sisters. Her mother obviously has no moral compass.”

Nate whistles. “Remind me never to get on your bad side.”

Mae crosses her arms. “I want to meet her. As soon as possible.”

I stare at her. “What? You mean, get on a plane and … No. No. We’d have to see that woman.”

Mae gives me a strange, fleeting smile, and I swear for a second it’s Mom looking out at me through her eyes, or maybe even Yia-yia. Someone older and wiser. “Don’t you want to hold her?”

I look at the picture again. My heart burns.

I nod.

I do. I want to hold my baby sister.

“Then we have a trip to plan,” Mae says.

I wonder if it’s disloyal to Mom to want to hold Pearl.

I think about this as Mae and Nate plot about how and when we’ll go to LA, what we should do about Rebecca. Aunt Nora won’t like it. Because of Mom.

But I’m already wondering what she smells like. What she’ll feel like in my arms. I don’t know if that makes me a bad daughter, a good sister, or both.

We go home, and I help Mae make Italian wedding soup. Ben’s favorite, she says. It has been so long since we made soup just the two of us, but here we are, side by side, chopping and sautéing and stirring.

This isn’t crisis soup. This is happy soup. But I can’t help thinking about the last time someone in our family made it. That was my-husband-is-cheating-on-me soup. Now it’s I-love-you soup. At least, I think it is.

“You have to tell him,” I say, ladling Dad’s favorite food into the large glass mason jar Mae is taking on the train with her.

“I know.” She looks into the pot, wistful. “I wish I’d worked the problem sooner. Four whole months.”

I rest a hand on her arm. “All you have is now. Go get your boy, Mae.”