“Ali?” she says. Tonight I let her call me that. “Are we going to die, too?” “No,” I say. “Shh, just go to sleep. We aren’t going to die.” “But she died.” I consider this. “Yes, but we aren’t going to. That’s a kind of dying you only do when you’re little. We’re big now.” I am seven and she is five. “We aren’t going to die.” As I say this, I realize suddenly that I am lying. That we will, one day. I hope she doesn’t know this. I hope she doesn’t know about forever. “Promise?” she says. “Promise,” I say. And my sister is quiet after that. But I lie awake in the dark for a long time.
