We've Always Been Three

I was thirteen years old and my brother was ten, the night Mother came home with our little sister, soaking wet and wrapped in a beach towel. The baby was naked with a mess of curly black hair hiding her face from our view, but on her little chest was a seashell necklace, just like the ones my brother and I both had.

"Where'd you get her?" My brother asked, saying exactly what I was thinking. We had never seen any signs of Mother being pregnant and she had always complained that adoption was too expensive. Yet here she stood with a mysterious child.

"The universe blessed me with her," Mother replied, staring down at the baby with a twinkle in her eyes.

My brother and I waited for her to elaborate, but she didn't. Instead, she sent us both to the room we shared and stayed in the living room cooing the baby to sleep.

"She's trying to replace me," my brother said, the moment the door was shut behind us.

"She's not," I said unconvincingly. The truth was Mother never wanted two boys and she never tried to hide it. It would come up during dinner or after watching a movie together.

"I always wanted a boy and a girl," she would say. So it was no secret that my brother was the unwanted child and that was a heavy weight to carry for a ten-year-old.

"She is," my brother insisted. "You saw the necklace." He clutched his own like it was his heart when he said it.

"But you still have yours," I reasoned. "She's just an addition to the family. No one is going to replace you."

My brother nodded, but kept his grip on his necklace so tight that his knuckles looked like they might break through his skin.

We remained silent for what felt like hours, neither one of us pretending to be asleep, but laying awake in our beds, listening to the rain and thunder fighting outside our window.

At around 3 am, Mother peaked her head into our room.

"Boys?" she asked.

"Yes, Mother," I said.

"Get up. We're going somewhere." And without another word, she shut the door quietly and left us both in the darkness once again.

In a flash of lightning that illuminated our room for the faintest of seconds, I caught the horrified look on my brother's face.

"Don't worry," I whispered, "we're probably just going somewhere for the baby."

My brother said nothing but we both got up and put our clothes on.

Mother was already in the car with the baby when we stepped outside. I slid into the front seat and my brother slid into the backseat, eyeballing the new car seat with a mixture of suspicion and disgust.

Instinctively, I looked up at the rearview mirror where our father's seashell necklace had hung since his mysterious death two years ago. Mother always said when she got remarried, she would give it to her new husband. But the rearview mirror was bare.

"What happened to Dad's neckl - " I started, but my brother had kicked the back of my seat at that moment. I caught his eye in the rearview and he shook his head at me subtly. His eyes darted down to the baby and the realization sunk in. Our sister had our father's necklace.

We drove in silence for almost an hour, passing all of the familiar landmarks in our town and even past the small sign that sported the town's name and shamelessly declared the population size of 5,217 people. Finally, we rolled to a stop at the edge of a dark forest.

Mother reached past me to the glove compartment and pulled out an old lantern.

"Come with me," she said to my brother. "You stay with your sister," she instructed me.

"But why can't we all go?" I protested.

"You think a forest is any place for a newborn?" Mother snapped.

"Well, it's no place for a ten-year-old!" I said back.

Mother glowered at me and turned back to my brother. "Let's go."

My brother clutched my hand for a brief moment and nodded at me with tears in his eye before following Mother into the darkness. I watched the dull glow from the lantern grow smaller and smaller as they walked deeper into the forest until it disappeared all together.

The baby began wailing the moment the lantern light was no longer in sight. I looked back into the backseat, thinking maybe I should rock her or sing to her, but I didn't. My heart was beating too loudly in my chest for me to attend to my new sister. Eventually, she cried herself to sleep and I felt myself begin to doze off as well. I awoke with a start to a tapping on the window.

Mother was standing outside and the faintest trace of daylight was peaking above the trees. I unlocked the door and Mother slid into the driver's seat then hung a seashell necklace on the rearview mirror.

"Is that my brother's?" I demanded. "Where is he?"

"Where is who?" Mother asked.

"My brother! Your other child!"

"You mean your sister? My other child is in the backseat."

"No, not her!" I was shaking with tears now. "Where'd you take him?"

"We need to get you home," Mother said, locking the door. "You must be sleep deprived."

No matter how many times I mentioned my brother that day or the next day or the day after, Mother never bent.

"I don't know who you're talking about," she would say.

I even called the sheriff that same morning to report my brother missing.

"Who?" the sheriff asked.

"My brother. You know him! He's in the same class as your daughter."

"I don't know who you're talking about," the sheriff said. "I'm sorry." And after some time, I started to believe him.

My sister is now the same age as our brother was when he disappeared. I still think of my brother sometimes, knowing that we shared a room and we had inside jokes that predated the ones my sister and I now share. Every now and then, I'll mention him to Mother, just to see if I can catch her off guard. But she never budges.

"It's always just been us three," she'll say.

And now, I always just nod. "You're right, Mother. We've always been three."

__________________________

Follow me on Instagram to see more interesting content and if you liked this post, make sure to hit the follow button.

Thanks for reading!

-Chanté