Free Hold Her Heart (Words of the Heart) by Holly Jacobs Page A

couldn’t stop. They were going to call Mom, but I made ’em call Dad. And when he showed up, I said if he didn’t let me get tested, I was going to run away ’cause I couldn’t live with knowing I might have saved her if they’d have just listened to me.”
    I looked at this young girl—my sister—with her sleep-tousled hair. She didn’t sound nine. She sounded like an adult. I realized that for more than half of her life she’d lived with Piper’s illness. She’d lived with the fears of losing her mother daily. It would be like living with a guillotine poised over your neck.
    “I wasn’t a match anyway,” she said softly.
    I set my coffee down on the bench next to me and reached over to her.
    “They said kids aren’t generally a match for their parents,” Fiona said. “I think Grandma feels guilty. Like if maybe she’d had more kids, Mom would have a better chance.”
    I wondered about this grandmother I didn’t know. Mom and Dad had both lost their parents before I came along, so I’d never had a grandparent.
    “You tried. You did your best,” I said, knowing how lame the words were even as I said them. “And I’m here to do mine. And if I’m not a match, either, maybe they’ll find a donor out there.”
    She shrugged, and I could see in her expression that she didn’t believe they’d find a donor. Rather than say so, Fiona said, “Mom will be up soon. Wanna come in and help me make her breakfast?”
    “Do you think she’ll mind me just making myself at home?”
    “She’s waited for you every day of your life. She gave me an Irish name because of yours. Siobhan and Fiona. We sound like sisters, don’t we? Siobhan and Fiona.” She said our names together as if she’d practiced them before.
    I realized that she’d known about me her whole life. I felt bad about missing out on hers. A big sister should be there for a little one. And yet, Fiona was the one offering me comfort and support.
    As if on cue, she added, “Mom loves you. She won’t mind. She’ll love it.”
    I nodded. I picked up my coffee cup and we walked toward the house. Fiona stopped. “Did you hear that?” she whispered.
    “What?”
    “There was a different bird call. Not a robin or sparrow. I’ll tell Mom. We’ll watch for it. She wrote Fiona and the Magic Feather for me, ’cause I loved birds so much.”
    With a different cadence to her voice, she said,
    Fiona heard a call that she’d never heard before and ran to the feeder. She saw a feather resting on the ground. It was a very large feather. Blue and green and brown and black. The colors seemed to glow. She understood it was a very special gift . . . she was little enough to know magic when she saw it. Grownups were often too busy with the real world to notice that magic was real and that it was all around them.
     
    I realized she was quoting the book.
    “I believe in magic,” she said. “I always believed you’d come home, and here you are. Magic.” She opened the back door into the house.
    I followed her in. “That must be so exciting to see your name in a book.”
    “It is.” Fiona gave me a look that again was far too old for a nine-year-old. “But you know she wrote everything for you.”
    “I know. For Amanda,” I said as we entered the kitchen. The sink and counter were filled with the remnants of last night’s dinner dishes. I thought about Piper, making me a dinner despite the fact that food made her nauseous. It might be presumptuous to make myself at home, but I could at least get this cleaned up for her.
    “Yeah, and—oh, you only read the older books. Hold on.” She tore out of the kitchen and was back a few seconds later. “Here.” She handed me a book called The Naming of Things . “This is one she wrote before I was born.”
    “To Siobhan . . . and Ned. You are my heart.”
    My hand trembled as I read the words. Piper had changed her dedications. She’d used my real name.
    “And this one is after I was born.” Fiona