Neither did the state.
I called my mother again.
“I need Chloe to sign temporary guardianship papers.”
“She’ll be back.”
“It’s been almost two weeks.”
“She is going through something.”
“So are her children.”
My mother’s voice sharpened.
“You don’t understand how hard things have been for her.”
That sentence hit something inside me.
“I don’t understand?”
“Kevin—”
“I dropped graduate school.”
“That was your decision.”
I actually laughed.
A short, ugly sound.
“Yes. Because Mia can’t sign medical consent forms.”
“Don’t martyr yourself.”
I hung up.
Two weeks became a month.
Then two.
A legal aid attorney helped me petition for temporary guardianship.
I hated every line of the forms.
Mother’s whereabouts unknown.
Children currently residing with maternal uncle.
Duration of placement: ongoing.
The words made Chloe’s absence feel official.
We sent notices to her last known address.
Returned.
We mailed one to a friend she had once stayed with in Arizona.
Returned.
Another to an address my mother swore Chloe might be using.
Returned.
I kept them all.
At first because the attorney told me to.
Later because I began to understand that memory is fragile when someone needs the truth to be different.
Three months after the storm, temporary guardianship was granted.
Chloe did not appear.
My parents did not appear either.
My father called that night.
“You embarrassed the family.”
I held the phone away from my ear.
“What?”
“Taking this to court.”
“I needed permission to take Mia to a doctor.”
“You could have asked us.”
“I did.”
Silence.
Then he said, “Your sister is still their mother.”
“I never said she wasn’t.”
What I didn’t say was that motherhood was becoming something I had trouble recognizing.
The first year nearly broke me.
I took drafting work at night and construction planning jobs during the day.
I sold the little sports car I had spent five years paying off and bought a used minivan that smelled permanently like stale french fries.
I moved us into a rental house with three bedrooms.
Leo and Noah shared.
Sophie got the smallest room.
Mia’s crib went in mine.
For six months, I woke every time she moved.
At twenty-four, I knew the difference between a hungry cry and a frightened cry.
I knew how to warm a bottle with one hand.
I knew which grocery store marked down meat after eight on Tuesdays.
I knew Sophie’s inhaler dosage.
I knew Leo hated peas.
I knew Noah could not sleep after thunderstorms.
