According to the agency, Ellie had entered protective care as an infant.
Her biological parents had never been properly identified.
The available information about her earliest days was incomplete.
Nora and Tom met her.
And almost immediately, something changed.
Nora called me afterward, crying.
“Claire, she’s wonderful.”
I could hear the excitement in her voice.
“She loves drawing. She asks a million questions. And she has the cutest little smile.”
I was happy for her.
Genuinely happy.
After everything she’d endured, my sister finally had a chance to become a mother.
Two weeks before she appeared at my door with that mysterious envelope, Ellie’s adoption was finalized.
Nora and Tom brought their daughter home.
They decorated her bedroom with pink curtains and soft blankets.
They bought coloring books, stuffed animals, and little baskets for her toys.
I helped Nora arrange everything.
She couldn’t stop smiling.
For the first time in years, the sadness that had followed her seemed to lift.
