I walked into the house swiftly as my curly, red hair bounced while I ran off the bus and saw my relatives’ cars sitting out in my driveway. I rushed inside to see what all the commotion was and why they were here. My relatives live at least four hours away; therefore they only visited once a month. They had already been here one time this month so I was excited, yet also wondering if they were here for a more serious reason. I dropped my book bag off at the coat rack as I entered the front door. I slipped off my shoes and went skipping through the house to find out where everyone was. I heard voices through the door the led into my living room. I saw a shiny balloon sitting in front of the doorway. I opened the door slowly and my aunt greeted me saying, “Hello Angelica!” “How are you? Are you well?” “I bet you are excited!”

My aunt spit out so many questions at one time I did not know which one I should answer first. I looked around the room at everyone and simply asked, “Excited for what?”
My family looked at me with confusion on their faces and then they looked at my mother. “You haven’t told her yet Stacy?”
“Well, I was getting to that point but I suppose it is out there now. I must tell her.” My mother said with some anger in her voice. I looked at my mother not knowing what was going on. “Well, go on…tell me mom. What am I supposed to be excited for?” “Angelica, just sit down and do not go crazy when I tell you this alright?” I looked at her getting kind of worried. “Okay mom, just spit it out. I will be able to handle it”
She took a deep breath and blurted out, “I’m going to have a baby and I am going to marry Devin!” I sat there with a blank face and no words came out of my mouth for the rest of the night. My whole family was so excited, but I did not understand why they were. I already had one brother at my dad’s house, now I am going to have a sister at my mom’s? And she is marrying someone who is not my dad? All those statements were running through my head as questions that I had to ask myself. They made no sense to me. As I started thinking more and more about the whole situation, I started to get angry. My mother didn’t even ask me if I wanted a baby sister! I was twelve and having a little energetic brother was enough damage done to the family. He is always pulling on my shirt wanting something or crying because I won’t get up that very second to get him a drink. I just did not understand why anyone would want more than one child. I was the first born and I should have been the last. I had been sitting up in my room for hours before my mother even came up to check on me. She knocked on my door and asked me if everything was alright. I looked at her stupidly and said “what do you think?”

She came into my room slowly and sat on the edge of my bed. She put her hand on mine and apologized for the way that she had told me. She wanted to take me out to dinner and break the news then, but she said that obviously did not work out. I burst out into tears and told her I did not want her to marry someone other than daddy. I also told her that I did not want another sibling. She looked at me with her bright blue eyes and told me everything would be okay if I just gave it time to sink in and calm down. She said I would get used to the idea of having someone else around. However, I did not want anyone else around. She was pushing a baby and a new father on me and I did not appreciate it. I yelled at her and told her to leave my room. She looked at me once again, but I had my face buried in my knees. She told me she loved me and was sorry and then she exited my room quietly.


A month after she had told me about the pregnancy, nothing in the house was the same. Devin started moving his belongings into the house and my mother was taking a break from work and was on bed rest. A couple more months went on and things only became worse. My mother was huge and we could not even eat out in public without someone interrupting our table asking us questions like “Is it a boy or a girl? Can I touch your stomach? Awe, how far along are you? Isn’t pregnancy beautiful?” To be honest, every time someone would ask those questions, I just wanted to ask them to take the child considering they wanted to know its whole life story before it was even born! I got more agitated as time went on. My mom was now seven months pregnant and I couldn’t spend time with her anymore. It was always, “Sweetie, will you go get Devin? I need him to run to the store and get me some food. I also need diapers. You never know when the baby could pop out!” She kept going on and on with her list of things she needed, but after about the third thing she told me, I had forgotten everything because I soon had stopped listening.


Another month of my mother’s complaining went on and the time was finally here and the baby was pushing its way out. Of course we were home and all of a sudden my soon to be step-father and I heard screaming from upstairs. My mother was sweating and yelling at Devin to get her stuff together. He quickly did and we headed off to the hospital. I realized while on the way there, that my mom started to lose consciousness every couple of minutes. I was worried, but I was sure that Devin would realize and speed up the car a little bit. He never did because he was too worried about how to get to the closest hospital in town. Since he had not realized that my mother was not really holding herself together, I told him what I had noticed and I got jerked back and my head slammed into the seat. He had pressed the gas so hard that I swear we could have taken flight. We finally reached the hospital and the paramedics had to take her in by a wheelchair because there was no way she could walk. I was extremely worried. I took my mother’s hand before they took her away, and I told her I loved her with all my heart. She smiled and then quickly went back into pain. A tear ran down my cheek that I had been trying to hold in while we rode to the hospital. My dad came to the waiting room so that Devin could go be in the room with my mom. There were so many people sitting around in the waiting room. After a couple hours of waiting, I had met some new people and told them about my baby sister. I started to become excited that I was going to have a sister. I do not know why, but I was looking forward to all of us hanging out together. As I started to get happier, the doctor that had delivered my baby sister came into the waiting room. Devin entered not far behind him. He had tears running down his cheeks like I had never seen before. The doctor pulled my father aside and talked to him very seriously. I was trying to read his lips and find out what was so shocking, but I couldn’t make out the words. My father slowly nodded his head and turned around to sit next to me once again. His shaking hand grabbed mine, and he looked at me sternly. “Your sister is well and doing perfectly like she should.” He said.

I smiled and asked him when I would get to see mom. A tear ran down his face and I got confused. He looked back at me and said “Your mother didn’t make it sweetie. She passed away while giving birth” The words went into my mind, but they did not register until a couple of days later at the funeral. My mother was gone and I felt like I had no one left in my world.