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Eighteen Years Before

The day her little sister took her first trip as a freshly minted flight attendant, drove her to the airport. Amber came, too, strapped into her booster seat in the back of the car.

“I can’t believe you’re really leaving home,”

told Pauline.

“I’m twenty, a little old to be freeloading off my older sister, don’t you think, Amber?”

Pauline replied, turning toward her niece in the back seat.

“What’s a freeloader?”

Amber asked.

“It’s a mooch,”

Pauline said.

“What’s a mooch?”

Amber asked.

“A twenty-year-old living with her big sister.”

“Don’t listen to her, Amber,”

said, turning to Pauline. “You know we don’t feel that way. I love you. Brian loves you.”

“And I love you most!”

Amber called.

“You better, kid.”

Pauline turned back to . “But what was supposed to be a few months turned into years.”

Growing up in their mother’s house had not been easy for , but for Pauline it had been a nightmare. ’s stoic temperament was better suited to living with a woman as rigid and cold as their mother, whereas Pauline’s more dramatic nature put her in perpetual conflict with the woman. When their father had been alive, he’d been a buffer, but after he died, their mother grew smaller, more scared, meaner. She and Pauline fought constantly until, four months before her high school graduation, Pauline was kicked out of the house. She had shown up on Brian and ’s doorstep in tears. Amber had jumped up and down in glee at the sight of her aunt’s suitcase, and was feeling a version of the same. Amber had not necessarily been planned, but she was wanted. Still, priorities had to be reshuffled again to allow for the new child—Brian had given up on graduate school to start a business and became a stay-at-home mom until Amber went to school—all of which was wonderful and a blessing but also isolating and lonely.

The plan had been for Pauline to stay until the fall, but by the time graduation rolled around, she was happily ensconced in the spare bedroom of their house, helping out at Brian’s company, and proving to be such a helpful third set of hands that was able to go back to school for her master’s degree. So Pauline stayed for two years.

“I was glad to have you. I wouldn’t have gotten my degree without you,”

said. “And Amber loved having her auntie close.”

“You should stay forever!”

Amber declared.

“Nah,”

Pauline said. “Don’t you want a baby brother or sister?” Amber nodded vigorously. “Well, you’ll need my room.”

hadn’t told Pauline that she was pregnant, but could Pauline tell? Her sister had a sixth sense about these things. Still, didn’t say anything. She wouldn’t until twelve weeks. Though she believed it was God’s will whether she had this child, better not to tempt fate.

At the airport, parked the car, and the three of them walked Pauline inside the terminal, all the way to the special security lane for flight crew.

“Wait!”

said before Pauline went through.

“I have nothing but time,”

Pauline said with a grin. “You got us here two hours early.”

“You can’t be too careful,”

said.

“Beg to differ,”

Pauline replied.

“Here.”

presented Pauline with a small stickpin encrusted with three gems. She’d had it made special by the jeweler who had engraved their wedding rings. “This is allowed to go on your uniform. I checked with the airline.”

“Of course you did,”

Pauline joked, smiling at Amber. She ran her finger along the stones. “I love it.”

“It’s pearl, turquoise, and peri . . . peri . . .”

Amber stumbled.

“Peridot,”

finished. “That’s your birthstone, your aunt’s is pearl, and mine is turquoise.”

“You might need to add an emerald in there,”

Pauline added with a wicked smile. “If I’m not wrong, that’s the birthstone for Tauruses.”

The doctor had put the due date at the end of April. Taurus territory. So Pauline did know.

pulled her sister in tight, remembering how she’d looked all swaddled up as a newborn. It had been a rough pregnancy for their mother, forty hours of labor and then an emergency C-section. After coming home from the hospital, she declared she needed time to heal and retreated to her bedroom, leaving ten-year-old to care for the baby girl. It had been summer vacation and those first weeks, as spent her days holding, feeding, burping, and singing to her sister, her heart had felt so full, almost too full, a sensation she would not experience again until Amber was born.

“Mama, me too,”

Amber called, and picked her up and she and her sister enveloped the child, who really they had both raised.

“I’m not gonna cry!”

Pauline said. “It’ll screw up my makeup.” Nonetheless she wiped a tear from her lashes.

, who rarely cried, broke down.

“It’s only five days,”

Pauline said. “And I’m still crashing with you until I find a place. You’ll be sick of me in no time.”

“Promise me you’ll always come back,”

said.

“Promise me you’ll always be here for me to come back to,”

Pauline said.

As they held each other and Amber, they promised.