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“N-n-oo.”
My breath stutters.
And my heart shatters.
Her tiny, fragile broken voice decimates me. And I don’t think I will ever be the same again. The sound of her voice, the only time I have ever heard it, has ruined me.
Naomi finally lets go, and I fall back with her in my arms. I cradle her against my chest as she cries quietly. She knows.
She’s only four, but she knows.
Naomi cries, but I don’t.
I don’t because the only thing that echoes in my head is her voice.
I don’t cry because I feel nothing.
I don’t feel…because I can’t allow myself to.
Naomi needs me whole.
My sister needs me to be strong. For her.
I’m her older brother.
And now, I am all she has.
The day I pulled my baby sister from around the waist of our dead mother, I knew nothing would ever be fair in life again. Nothing would ever be right.
The only time my sister has ever spoken to me…was when I pulled her away from our mother’s dead body.
“You and Naomi were forced to grow up too fast,” Diane, our Jamaican social worker, says softly. “She’s still so young, and she needs a family. Someone who can be a mother and father figure to her.”
“I was both of them for her. I raised her,” I croak, my voice trembling. I changed her diaper as a baby, I made sure to feed her, I clothed her, I stayed up all night with her when she was sick, I read to her…I was everything she needed me to be.
I am the only person who can love her the way I do…because she is a part of me.
“And you shouldn’t have had to. You were — are a child yourself.”
I shake my head, tears burning the backs of my eyes. I didn’t cry when our mother died. They already separated Naomi from me. Foster care is a cruel system. But if they permanently take her away from me…I don’t think I’ll survive that. “She needs me. I am her only biological family left and you want to take that away from her? She belongs with me.”
Diane sighs, and I can hear the remorse in it. “Naomi needs a stable home and this is her chance.”
“But I told you,” I snap, hating the way Diane makes it seem like these strangers can love her more than me, better than me, “I was planning to adopt her once I turn eighteen.”
“Adoption has many strict requirements, Grayson. You can’t just adopt her once you turn eighteen. That’s not how it works. It might even take you years to prove that you can properly take care of her. Adoption is not an easy system to work with. She has a chance to have a permanent family right now, instead of staying in foster care.”
“And it’s not like I have a fucking choice,” I grit out, anger and hopelessness coursing through my body. “It’s not like you’re asking for my permission. She’ll get adopted, even if I don’t want it.”
Sibling separation is a sad reality of the foster care system.
Diane turns to face me. Her dark brown eyes are kind and full of sympathy. “Think of what’s best for her.”
“I am what’s best for her.”
She cocks her head to the side. “Are you? Stop being stubborn for one second and think. What does Naomi need, other than you and the love that you can give her?”
She needs me.
