Page 117 of The Voice We Find

Gabby cocks her head to the side in a way that tells me she’s missed a word or a meaning.

“Nurturing,” I repeat as I attempt to finger spell the word in ASL. Halfway through, she swipes a hand through the air.

“Nurturing?” she clarifies.

I nod but her expression remains puzzled. “What are you not saying?”

Nothing like ripping the Band-Aid right off. I stuff my hands in my pockets and rock back on my heels. If she’d asked me a month ago, I’d have blown off such a question and told her everything was fine. But standing here now, in our parents’ bedroom, I won’t smudge the truth. And the truth is something I’ve never admitted to anyone.

“Sometimes I wonder if I made the wrong decision for you.”

Gabby’s eyes go wide. “About what?”

“After the attorney told me that Mom and Dad named me your legal guardian...” I release a hard breath. “Aunt Judy offered to take you.”

Her eyebrows dip low. “You didn’t want me?”

I’m quick to shake my head. “Of course I did, but I worried that I wouldn’t be able to care for you the same way she could. She’s motherly and kind, and I’m stubborn and shortsighted.” I tug on her pigtail. “And she loves you.”

“So do you.” Gabby says this with enough conviction to pierce the gap between my ribs and stab straight into my heart. “You love me, too, August.”

“I do.” It takes a monumental effort to swallow. “I love you very much. But I want you to be able to make that choice for yourself now. You’re mature enough to decide who you want to live with—”

“I choose you.” Gabby throws her quilt-laden arms around me, and I hug her back, in the very space my mom once asked for my thoughts on being a summer host home for Gabby. But in my eighteen-year-old head, hosting her didn’t make near the sense that adopting her did. The spunky little girl with the gap-toothed grin needed a family, and we had one to give her. Somehow even then I knew she was meant to be my sister, and I was meant to be her big brother.

I peek over her head, remembering how I sat at the foot of my parents’ bed while my mom wrote her prayers for Gabby on pink three-by-five cards and stuffed them into the folds of her Bible, believing for the day they’d fly back and bring my sister home.

The recall of those days feels like someone else’s life, from someone else’s memory.

Little had I known then just how much our world would shift. I hold my sister a little tighter, thankful our mother’s prayers were answered despite the unforeseen plot twists in her future. If nothing else, I could be grateful for that. And, of course, for whatever supernatural experience had kept my sister alive.

When we break apart, Gabby moves to the closet once again and lifts a box about the size of a shoebox from under our mother’sgardening boots. I recognize it immediately; it had come without warning six months after our parents’ death.

____

Gabby’s recovery was finally on the upswing. Her recently fitted hearing aids were in, and she was watching a YouTube tutorial on ASL for beginners while Chip reclined on the sofa after dropping by with our favorite pizza cookies and suggesting some new action-adventure movie for after dinner. It was his every other Saturday afternoon routine, one I’d begun to look forward to at a time when there was little to feel that way about.

When the doorbell rang, I thought nothing of it. Aunt Judy’s affinity for Amazon Prime equaled new girly knickknacks for Gabby every few days. There’d been stuffed animals and fancy nail polish kits and young adult book series and gobs and gobs of hair products. I expected to drop this shoebox-sized package at Gabby’s feet like I had with all the others, but this one was addressed to me. So while Chip scrolled on his phone and Gabby practiced basic signs in ASL, I took the package to the kitchen table and used my pocket knife to cut through the thick tape.

The instant the first flap was free, blood rushed to my ears.

It was my parents’ scent that hit me first—hard and fast like a punch to the jaw. I should have stopped there, should have closed it up then and waited for some inevitable day in the future when my self-loathing was high enough for such a punishment as this. But the card scrawled with my name was lying face up, and I couldn’t leave the mystery untouched.

My fingers shook when I cracked the envelope open and pulled out a handwritten card by a pastor I’d never heard of—Pastor Bedi.

Dear August Tate,

My church family has been praying for you and your sister in this difficult time of grief. We are saddened by the loss of your wonderful parents, but we rejoice in the truth of where they are today.

Please forgive the delay in getting this package sent to you. Our mail service is unreliable, and we prefer to send our correspondence andcare packages to the USA through our partner families and missionary friends. I pray this box finds you well and arrives without incident.

As you likely know, your parents, like many others who travel with our organization, signed a waiver to donate the majority of their packed personal belongings before the start of their trip. We are grateful to inform you that your parents’ items (clothing, shoes, belts, toiletries, tools, books, suitcases) have recently been gifted to families in need. Hallelujah!

The contents we sent back are what we believe your parents would have taken home with them at the end of their visit. We hope they are a blessing to you and your sister, and a reminder of the faithful parents God gave you.

Blessings,

Pastor Bedi

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