The first time my brother tried to give his daughter away, I was still bleeding, and the world split so quietly it almost sounded like mercy. His hands hovered, then retreated, like he’d accidentally picked up something burning instead of a baby with a soft spine and a terrifying future. Melissa was still stitched and sedated, our mother already gone, our father a ghost in the corner chair. I watched Ryan’s eyes skip over his newborn’s back, land on the beige hospital wall, and stay there like if he didn’t look, he wouldn’t be asked to love what might never walk. I thought it was panic. I thought it was grief. I didn’t yet know about the résumé he’d padded, the manager who’d never heard his name, the paychecks that didn’t exist. I only knew that when he said, “You’re better at this than me,” and pushed Hope into my arms, something in our family’s story snapped, mid-sentenc… Continues…