The Sister They Sent Back

Anyone thinking of terminating an adoption needs to read this and know the long term effects on their other children: How I Lost My Sister:

"I was ... three and a half? Four? They adopted a baby. I remember her name. Beverley Henderson. 'This is your new sister,' they said. And then after a few weeks – I don't know how long in reality – she was gone. They sent her back. I never saw her again."

...the signing of the papers is not a happy ending but a beginning which can go either way, or any way in between....

My father said: "But you were only a toddler yourself; we imagined you wouldn't even notice." But I did notice, and – glib though this may seem – I can trace so many aspects of my own behaviour which puzzle or sadden me to the moment when Beverley was sent back. 

I spent most of my life afraid that I too would be sent back into some unknown exile; that one day I would do something which would cause me to vanish.