“Read it out loud,” Ailani whispered.
Hannah’s voice cracked on the first word.
“Happy birthday, little sister. I promised I’d be here.”
My heart stopped.
The room went quiet. Skylar set down her glass without looking at it. Ailani reached for Hannah’s arm.
“Read it out loud.”
Hannah had no siblings other than Luke. No one could have written that.
“Is this somebody’s idea of a joke? ‘Cause it’s not funny.” Her voice broke; she looked at me, and her eyes were already wet. “Luke was my only brother. You all know how much I miss him. Mom, who wrote this? Who would do that?”
I couldn’t answer. My mouth opened, but the words got stuck somewhere.
All at once, I was 13 years back again.
“Is this somebody’s idea of a joke?”
***
I was standing in a hospital corridor while a doctor said my very sick five-year-old Hannah’s liver was failing. I was calling a phone that rang and rang, a number belonging to a man who’d stopped answering the day he decided we were too much for him.
