I took the picture out of my pants pocket and stared at it. It was old winkled now from the nine years it had been transplanted from pants pocket to pants pocket. I took it everywhere. If I was wearing a pocketless dress I tucked in under the folds of fabric or, since I started wearing them at the age of 12, my bra. Stephanie, Sasha, and me (I’m Shanna) sat on Santa’s lap grinning wildly at daddy who was holding the camera. The picture was taken around mid-December the Christmas we were all six.

I loved this picture, even though I couldn’t recall it no matter how much I tried and I had, more times than I cared to remember. What I could recall perfectly nearly decade later, much to my horror, was the day six weeks later when my life altered.

I remembered, without wanting to, how I’d pouted that Friday morning watching Stephie and Sasha pack the clothes that mama had lined up on their beds into our matching Cinderella suitcases. My own identical suitcase was sitting beside my own pink canopy bed. I wouldn’t join my sisters until that evening because I had to go to a stupid doctor’s appointment. When Nana had invited us all to her cabin in the mountains to spend the long weekend skating, skiing, and fishing. I hadn’t had the appointment so mom said we could all go. But then Doctor Silverman had a cancellation and could squeeze me in. Mom had been trying to get me in to see him since Halloween when she saw a news profile on him. He’s supposed to be some kind of genius. But going to the appointment meant that I wouldn’t be able to join my sisters and Nana until later that evening. I’d miss a whole day of fun. Stupid diabetes!

I tried to argue with mom, but that went about as well as it always does. She had even reverted to her old retort of last resort. “I’m the mommy, that’s why.” So I went, pouting all the while. There were three other kids in the waiting room. One was a girl about my age. “Wanna play Barbie?” she asked me.

“Sure,” I said , even though I wasn’t much of a Barbie girl. Among us, Stephie was the one who liked Barbie. She had about sixty dolls. They were supposed to be for all of us to share. But she claimed most of them. Neither Sasha nor I minded, Sasha liked to play with army men and I liked to draw. Even though our room was divided into identical thirds, we’d all managed to decorate our parts to reflect our differences. I had tuned my walls into the Shanna Devins gallery. Sasha had posters of horses, her other passion, anywhere on her third of our room. Stephie was the girly girl of our trio, Disney Princess’s- especially Ariel- covered her walls.