When my gold necklace went missing, I was astonished to find it under my adopted daughter’s mattress. My heart was pounding. It wasn’t the first time a missing object had reappeared there—had she stolen it? I had to find out the truth, but I never imagined how devastating it would be.
After twelve years of marriage and raising our daughter Lacey, eight, my husband and I felt ready to open our hearts and our home to another child through adoption.
Lacey was thrilled when we told her.
“I can’t wait to have a sister!” she cried, jumping off the sofa and running around the living room.
The decision had not been an easy one. We spent months discussing it, and Lacey’s approval was the final step. After that initial discussion, she kept pestering us about when her new sister would arrive.
We thought we were prepared. We imagined a smooth transition, full of instant bonds and shared laughter.
Reality had other plans.
It took us months to finalize all the paperwork, but we were finally approved to foster a nine-year-old girl named Sophie.
Lacey helped decorate the guest bedroom, choosing cheerful yellow curtains and a rainbow bedspread.
“It has to be perfect,” she insisted, placing stuffed animals on the windowsill. ‘My new sister has to love it.’
Sophie arrived on a Tuesday, clutching a small backpack to her chest. Her big brown eyes took it all in, observing, evaluating. She spoke little, but observed a lot.
While my husband and I worked to make her feel welcome, Lacey was brimming with excitement at finally having a sister.
“Look at my toys!” Lacey exclaimed that first day, taking Sophie to her room. ‘Let’s play with dolls together!’
Sophie nodded hesitantly, carefully picking up one of Lacey’s many dolls.
I watched her from the doorway, my heart swelling with emotion.
But that emotion didn’t last long. The first cracks appeared in simple moments: Lacey’s frown when Sophie used her colored pencils, the way she hugged her toys tighter when Sophie walked by, and her sudden insistence on sitting on my lap during story time.
But it was natural that she would have some adjustment problems. All children go through that when they have a new sibling. I never suspected it was more than that until things started to go missing.
“Mom!” Lacey’s voice broke one afternoon as she grabbed my arm. ”I can’t find her. My special doll is gone! The one Grandma gave me for Christmas!”
We turned the house upside down looking for it. When I finally discovered the doll under Sophie’s mattress, my heart sank. I called Sophie to her room in a soft voice.
“Sweetheart, we need to talk about the doll,” I said, patting the bed beside me.
The mattress sagged as she sat up, her shoulders hunched forward. “Taking things that belong to others is not okay. But if you tell the truth, we can get through this together.”
Sophie’s lower lip trembled. ”I didn’t take it! I promise.”
She wrung her hands in her lap, a nervous habit I had noticed in the short time we had been together.
I sighed, attributing her refusal to the period of adjustment that many foster children go through. “How about we buy you your own special doll tomorrow? Would you like that?”
The next day, I brought home a beautiful doll with curly brown hair, just like Sophie’s.
Lacey frowned at the new doll. “It’s not as pretty as mine,” she muttered, loud enough for Sophie to hear. “Mine is much better. And Grandma picked it out especially for me.”
I should have realized that jealousy was taking root, but I was too focused on making Sophie feel included.
Then there was the incident with my necklace.
My grandmother had given me a gold necklace that I treasured above all my other jewelry. When Lacey asked me to try it on and I went to look for it, my blood ran cold.
All my other jewelry was exactly where it should be, but the small jewelry box in which I kept the necklace was empty. I tore the house apart looking for it, but found nothing.
I racked my brains trying to figure out where it could be until I changed the girls’ bedding later.
I found the necklace under Sophie’s mattress.
“Sophie, please explain to me how this got here,“ I asked, lifting the necklace.
“I didn’t do it!” Sophie’s voice rose in panic. “Please believe me. I wouldn’t steal.”
Tears streamed down her cheeks as she walked away from me.
“You took it!” Lacey shouted from the door, her face red with anger. ”Just like with my doll! She’s a thief!”
The argument between the girls escalated until I had to separate them: Sophie retreated to her room while Lacey stormed downstairs.
Then I called my husband at work, my voice breaking. “Maybe we made a mistake. Maybe the foster care isn’t right for our family. I don’t know how to handle this.”
“Give it time,” he urged. “Remember what the social worker said about adjustment periods?”
But fate had other plans to reveal the truth to me.
That same afternoon, as I was walking past the playroom with a basket of clean clothes, I heard something that stopped me in my tracks.
“If you tell anyone, I’ll say you hit me.” Lacey’s voice came through the crack in the door.
I backed away immediately and looked into the room. Lacey was standing next to Sophie, who appeared to have tripped and fallen, and was now rubbing her elbow as tears welled up in her eyes.
“Mom will believe me,” Lacey hissed. ”And they’ll send you away, back to where you came from.”
My world tilted on its axis.
In that moment, I saw what I hadn’t seen before: Lacey’s calculated attempts to eliminate what she considered a threat to her perfect world.
I went into Lacey’s room and started putting away her clean clothes. My head was spinning. The situation was much more complex than I had thought. I mechanically tidied Lacey’s desk and that’s when I saw the drawings.
My hands trembled as I saw Sophie’s face crossed out with angry red pencil strokes and the words “Goodbye, enemy” scribbled across the top.
It broke my heart. I couldn’t help but wonder if I had made a big mistake bringing Sophie home, but then it hit me: Sophie wasn’t the problem, I was!
And the only way to fix it was to find a way to reassure my daughter that Sophie wasn’t her rival.
The next morning, I sent my husband to take Sophie to the park so Lacey and I could talk. I called her into the living room and lifted her onto my lap.
“Is everything all right, sweetheart? After all, our family has grown by one member, and that’s a big change.”
She squirmed, avoiding my eyes. “Everything’s fine.”
I hugged her tighter and kissed her on the forehead.
“I know something hurts in your heart, Lacey. I love you more than anything in this world. You know that, right? Nothing could ever change that. Please tell me what’s hurting so I can help make it better.”
The dam broke. Tears ran down her face as she clutched my shirt. “He took you away from me! You’re always worried about her feelings and making sure she’s OK. I’m not special anymore.”
“Oh, sweetheart.” I rocked her gently, as I used to do when she was little. ‘Love doesn’t work like that. It’s not like a cake where more people mean smaller slices. Love grows. There’s always enough.”
“But I don’t want to share you,’ she whispered into my neck. ”You’re my mom.”
“I know it’s hard,” I said softly. ”But think about Sophie. She didn’t have a family to call her own. We could be that family, if you’re willing to try. Remember how excited you were about having a sister?”
Lacey wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, considering my words. Finally, she nodded.
“She has really nice hair,” she admitted. ”And she’s good at drawing. Better than me, actually.”
When Sophie returned from the park with rosy cheeks, I asked my husband to take Lacey out for ice cream. Sophie and I needed our own conversation.
“Sophie, I’m so sorry,” I said. ”I know you didn’t take those things. I can imagine how hard it must have been for you, but I promise we will strive to be a better family for you. Will you please forgive me for doubting you?”
She was silent for a long moment, her brown eyes scanning my face. Then she threw herself into my arms and hugged me tightly.
In that embrace, I felt her forgiveness and something else: the acceptance of the love we had to offer each other.
The healing took time. My husband and I instituted “special days” in which each child received individual attention. We also went to family therapy, but the real breakthrough came from the girls themselves.
One night, as I passed Sophie’s room, I heard whispers and giggles. As I leaned in, I saw Lacey carefully placing her beloved doll in Sophie’s arms.
“You can keep her tonight,” Lacey said softly. ‘She helps you with your nightmares.”
Sophie’s smile lit up the room as she hugged the doll. ’Thanks, little sister.”
The words seemed to surprise them both, but neither took it back. Our family wasn’t perfect, but we were learning, growing and loving together.