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Chapters (47)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Notice
  3. Dedication
  4. Epigraphs
  5. Prologue
  6. Part One
  7. ONE
  8. TWO
  9. THREE
  10. FOUR
  11. FIVE
  12. SIX
  13. SEVEN
  14. EIGHT
  15. NINE
  16. TEN
  17. ELEVEN
  18. TWELVE
  19. THIRTEEN
  20. FOURTEEN
  21. FIFTEEN
  22. SIXTEEN
  23. SEVENTEEN
  24. Part Two
  25. EIGHTEEN
  26. NINETEEN
  27. TWENTY
  28. TWENTY-ONE
  29. TWENTY-TWO
  30. TWENTY-THREE
  31. TWENTY-FOUR
  32. TWENTY-FIVE
  33. TWENTY-SIX
  34. TWENTY-SEVEN
  35. TWENTY-EIGHT
  36. TWENTY-NINE
  37. THIRTY
  38. THIRTY-ONE
  39. THIRTY-TWO
  40. THIRTY-THREE
  41. THIRTY-FOUR
  42. THIRTY-FIVE
  43. THIRTY-SIX
  44. THIRTY-SEVEN
  45. Acknowledgments
  46. About the Author
  47. Newsletter Sign-up

Ann said, “You’re never too old to need a family.”

“Sixteen is nothing,” Ed said. “You still have two years of high school. Those are two important years. But you have to give consent. The whole thing is totally up to you.”

Poppy brightened. She took his hand. “You’ll be my brother.”

Until that moment, Michael hadn’t realized he already felt like he was Poppy’s brother. But then Ann said, “And I’ll be your sister.”

Ann? His sister?

That was a harder idea to process. It reminded him of that optical illusion his psychology teacher had shown him, the ink drawing where you see either two faces or a vase; you can see it only one way at a time. The faces or the vase.

That entire summer in Wellfleet and all through the next school year, when his adoption was made final, he tried to see and think of Ann that way: just a sister. Only a sister. He tried.

TWO

Ann

Wellfleet
2000

Ann lined up a babysitting job her second day back on the Cape. Some lady named Mrs. Shaw had called the house after she’d seen the flyer Ann posted at the Wellfleet library. She had two boys. More importantly, she offered to pay Ann more than double what she made back home in Milwaukee.

Ann babysat every summer since she’d become Red Cross certified—well, except for last summer, because her parents had wanted her to spend time with Michael. She didn’t mind. She cheered him on at his swim lessons; they ran together on the sandy soil in the fire lanes, looked for shells at Mayo Beach, and ate soft serve on the town pier. Ann had always loved Cape Cod, but last summer, seeing the place through Michael’s eyes, she became newly aware of how special it was, and how much Michael meant to her—more than she should feel for a “brother.”

Michael loved their Cape house. Ann felt badly that he had to sleep in the bedroom in the attic, where it was hot and stuffy, and the ceilings were so slanted that he would bump his head when he woke. She tried to make his space nicer by wallpapering it with some old, yellowed newspapers from the thirties she’d found in the basement, and she covered the armrests of her grandfather’s favorite chair that sat in the middle of the room with electrical tape where the mice had chewed the upholstery.