Chapter 1

When I was eighteen, my younger sister pushed me down the backstage stairs to steal the only open spot at the National Dance Company.

I suffered a comminuted fracture of my right leg, and yet she put on my costume, danced the choreography I'd created, and became the principal dancer.

My mother said she was only carrying on my dream for me.

I believed it for ten whole years.

Until, at the end of her principal anniversary performance, I sat in my wheelchair and watched my husband, Patrick, walk onto the stage and place the crown on her head with his own hands.

The host asked them with a smile what their biggest regret was after ten years together.

My sister touched her slightly swollen belly, looked at me with reddened eyes, and said, "The baby is almost three months along, and the father is Patrick."

She looked at me again. "Sis, I'm sorry. I don't want my child to have no name anymore."

...

I hadn't wanted to go to my sister Fern's principal anniversary performance.

My mother called three times, saying Fern had spent a whole year preparing for it, and the closing piece was "Returning Birds," the dance I never got to finish when I was eighteen.

"If you don't go, she'll carry the regret in her heart," she said, then added, "You're sisters. You can't hold on to something from ten years ago for the rest of your life."

In the end, it was Patrick who wheeled me into the theater.

Patrick is my husband, and before I turned eighteen he was the dance partner I was most in sync with.

After the injury to my leg, I could never go on stage again, but he never left.

We registered our marriage six years ago—no wedding, no public announcement.

At first it was because I didn't want the media chasing me about that accident anymore, and he said too that marriage was a matter between two people, with no need to put it out there for others to gossip about.

Back then I thought I was lucky enough.

The stage was gone, but at least I had someone beside me who truly knew what I'd been through.

As we went in, a reporter recognized me and kept pressing, asking whether I was Fern's "sister who retired because of an injury."

Patrick blocked the camera for me and said I was only here as family today and wouldn't be giving interviews.

In that moment the gesture even warmed my heart—I thought that after ten years, he still understood best what I was afraid of.

The staff seated me in the front row, closest to the aisle, and Patrick checked the brakes on my wheelchair before heading backstage.

I remember telling my mother that he hadn't changed at all over the years.

After the lights went down, Fern rose into view from the middle of the lift platform.

Ten years on, she was now the youngest principal dancer the National Dance Company had ever had.

When the music of "Returning Birds" began, I still couldn't help gripping the armrests of my wheelchair.

The first raised arm, the turn, even the way she deliberately dragged the landing half a beat—these were all things I'd worn smooth, little by little, when I was eighteen.

Back then Fern would always crouch at the door of the rehearsal room to watch me, smiling as she said, "Sis, once you become principal, I'll carry your bag for you."

Later she pushed me down the backstage stairs.

I suffered a comminuted fracture of my right knee, and my pelvis was badly injured too.

The next day, the audition that should have been mine—she went to it in my costume.

My mother knelt at my hospital bed and begged me, saying she would only stand in for me this once.

That one time lasted ten years.

After the performance, the host invited Patrick onto the stage, saying he was both Fern's most important choreographer and her most in-sync partner over the past ten years.

As Patrick walked up, he glanced back at me, and I even smiled at him.

Until he placed the crown on Fern's head with his own hands.

The host asked the two of them with a smile what their biggest regret was after ten years together.

Fern was silent for a few seconds, then touched her belly. "The baby is almost three months along, and the father is Patrick. Sis, I'm sorry, I don't want my child to have no name anymore."

The room went still for an instant, then broke into a storm of camera flashes.

I couldn't make out what the people around me were shouting; I only saw Patrick frown and say in a low voice, "Didn't we agree to talk about this after we got home?"

I turned to look at my mother. Her face looked bad too, but she didn't ask a single word about whether it was true—she only reached out and pressed down on my wheelchair.

"Elise, there are reporters everywhere here. Don't make a scene right now."

I looked at her.

So it turned out she had known all along, too.