y sister wouldn’t let me hold her newborn for three weeks, while everyone else got baby cuddles. Then I walked in unannounced, heard Mason screaming alone, and picked him up. The Band-Aid on his thigh was peeling, and the second I lifted the corner, my sister came running, begging me to stop.I can’t have kids.Not “maybe someday.” Not “keep trying.”Just… can’t.After years of infertility, I stopped letting myself picture a nursery. I stopped pausing in the baby aisle. I stopped saying “when.”So when my little sister got pregnant, I poured everything I had into her. I threw the gender reveal. I bought the crib. The stroller. The tiny duck pajamas that made me tear up in a store aisle like an idiot.
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She hugged me so tight I could barely breathe. “You’re going to be the best aunt ever.”I wanted that to be true more than I wanted almost anything.My sister and I have always been… complicated.She’s always had a talent for bending reality until it suited her. Little lies as a kid, bigger ones as a teen, and by adulthood, it was just her personality: fragile, dramatic, always the victim, always needing attention.
But I thought a baby would straighten her out.Then Mason was born.And everything flipped like a switch.At the hospital, I stood next to her bed with flowers and food.”He’s perfect,” she said, staring at him like he was a miracle.I smiled, heart pounding. “Can I hold him?”Her grip tightened. Her eyes flicked to my hands like they were dirty.”I washed. I can sanitize again.