I feel a ping of fear as I open my mouth to ask her my final question.
"El... how does all of this have to do with Scar and I? Don't get me wrong I am excited for you, but I am very very confused." I put my hand on her shoulder to be supportive especially since she seems extremely confused and like she is struggling with this subject.
This time she looks at me and holds the folder out to me, I hesitate before taking the folder from her, my curiosity burning deep but anxiety is beginning to take its grasp on me. "My mom gave these to me after she told me about my sister. I guess the first thing to do is for you to read all of those documents..." I take the folder from her not breaking eye contact. Finally, I get the courage to read the documents in the folder feeling the pit in my stomach growing and I feel it dropping further and further down.
The first thing I see is a birth certificate for a baby girl with no name born to Ella's mother, then there is adoption paperwork, and my heart fucking sinks to my ass...I look at the names of the adopted parents and see my parents' names. My world is spinning, my mom had been pregnant and not to mention she came home with my baby sister...or so I thought. My head is spinning out of control with all of these unanswered questions. I am so angry that I had no idea, I mean I guess that I should have known at least a little considering that she doesn't look like me completely. I mean we do look related, but she always looked different I thought that maybe she looked different because she was a girl.
The next document I find in the folder is a birth certificate with Scarlet's name on it with both of my parents' names on it, my frustration climbs, and I find myself wishing more than ever that they were here to help me through this and to help me understand what all of this meant. I have all of these questions and so little answers and I feel stuck and confused and out of all of the emotions I hate feeling these ones more than others. The next document I find knocks me off my axis, if I wasn't still sitting on the floor I would have fallen over, there is a death certificate for a baby girl with my mother's name on it. Not only that but there is an annotation explaining the cause of death, 'Baby girl born sleeping, cause of death seems to be umbilical cord wrapped around her neck'.
My heart shatters, my biological sister didn't make it and my parents didn't even tell me. Instead, they covered it up and brought home another baby. Scarlet will always be my sister, but I am shaken to my core finding out about this, this is an earth-shattering thing that all of our parents kept from us as if it meant nothing and as if it wouldn't affect the way things would be afterwards. Just when I think that this could be the end there is yet another bombshell, another document. I contemplate whether I really want to even look at it, what else could possibly be dropped on me now? I look at the final document, I notice that this form is a DNA form I have seen enough of them in my work that I know exactly what it is before I even read it. The form discloses a direct DNA match between Scarlet and Stella. My head spins and I feel as though I may pass out, my mouth falls open as soon as I finally understand what Stella meant when she was telling me that she doesn't want to hurt us.
"Thank you for sharing this with me. I am very upset, and I feel as though my entire life has been a lie. I love my parents and I trust them but at this moment I am really unsure of how I feel. Scar will always be my baby sister and I will never treat her any differently than I ever have. I can imagine that you probably want this out in the open right away but please can we hold off till she is at least home and feeling better? She is so fragile, and I don't want her to break." I feel selfish for even suggesting it but I just know in my heart of hearts that this is the best thing for her at this point in time, she is just too fragile to have this dropped on her. I really want her to know the truth, but I feel that right now is not the right timing and I hope that Ella doesn't take this the wrong way.
Stella looks at me with a look of relief and acceptance which instantly helps me to feel much better. "Are you sure that you are ok with waiting? I don't want you to feel like I am not validating your feelings or that you are her twin. I am very excited with the news of having another sister. Hell, even better and more fun I have twin sisters, I mean how cool is that." I smile proudly when I make it clear that she is just as much my family as Scar Bear is.
She smiles at me, and I can see the tears welling up in her eyes. "Hey now, you're not allowed to cry cause then I will for sure cry again and I think at this point you have seen me cry enough today. So now I am gonna call you...Hmmm...Elli Bear! Since y'all are my twin sisters I want them to match." I poke her in her ribs as an older brother would do to pick on his younger sister. She laughs and bats my hand away.
"Thank you, Cam, for being so understanding, caring, and welcoming. I was so afraid that you would hate me for all of this."
"You know Elli Bear family is family biological or not. I wish that they would have told us much before now, but everything happens for a reason. I would love for you, me, and your mom...well I guess y'alls mom could sit down together when the time is right to tell Scar that way, we can all support her in this confusing time. I feel like this may really cause her a great deal of upset and I would really hate for her to get hurt or have issues with healing. Plus, if your mom is here, she may be able to answer questions for Scar that we may not know the answers to."
"I agree with you family is family and honestly I have always seen you and Scar as family regardless. I couldn't be happier that we are closer family then any of us could have ever imagined. Mom would be happy to be there to answer the questions that we can't. I'm sure that mom will answer them to the best of her abilities, even if you have some questions too, I mean I know that the documents speak for themselves, but they don't explain everything." Her response makes the pit n my stomach almost completely disappear, having the option to have her mom there to answer our questions and to be there to support all of us in the way we need gives me great comfort.