Three Little Words by Harvey Sarah N.

saying I have to do anything.” He looks around the table at Phil and Megan and Caleb. “Right, guys?”
    They all nod, but Chloe pulls away from Sid and rockets out of the rooms, slamming the front door. They can hear her pound down the stairs. In the silence that follows her exit, Caleb lets out a huge sigh, as if he has been underwater for a long time.
    â€œWhat’d I tell you,” he says to Phil. “WMD.”

Watch Your Step
    â€œA re you sure, Sid?” Megan is sitting on Sid’s bed, watching him fold his clothes and stuff them in his backpack.
    â€œNo,” Sid replies. “Not really. But I’m curious. I mean—a brother. And a grandmother. I gotta go, right?” What was it Irena always said to Chloe? Curiosity killed the cat. Sid hopes this proves not to be true.
    â€œAre you scared?” Megan reaches out and puts her hand on Sid’s arm.
    â€œYeah. A bit.” Sid pauses in his packing. He’s more than scared—he’s terrified—but lately he’s been thinking a lot about what Tobin said just before he left: If you don’t watch out, you’re going to turn into some phobic hermit Unabomber weirdo. Sid knows Tobin had a good point. If he doesn’t break away from his routines soon, he never will. Looking for a lost brother seems like a good way to try. It feels horrible though, as if he is gutting himself with one of Caleb’s fileting knives.
    â€œI wouldn’t go if she was there, you know,” he says as he rolls up yet another black T-shirt.
    â€œIf who was there?”
    â€œDevi, Devorah, Debby. I never want to see her. You’re my mother. Caleb’s my father. I just want you to know I’m clear on that.” He clears his throat as tears sting his eyes.
    Megan is silent for a moment.
    â€œThank you, Sid,” she finally says. “But if you want to see her, that’s okay too. It’s up to you. It won’t change anything between us. We always wondered if Devi might turn up one day. It used to scare me, but not anymore. You’ve been our son for fourteen years. That’s a long time. And it sounds like she’s had a rough life.”
    Sid shrugs. He wonders if there is something wrong with him—not wanting to meet his birth mother, not caring about her. He knows that lots of adopted children long for their biological parents, but he never has. Megan took him to a play therapist when he was about four and didn’t want to go to pre-school. The therapist worked with him once a week for a few months and concluded that he had a bit of what she called social anxiety but nothing to be concerned about. He skipped kindergarten but went relatively cheerfully to grade one. By then, he and Chloe had become friends, so everyone relaxed: Sid was okay. A bit odd, maybe, but okay. Not fucked up—at least not any more than most kids. Now he wonders if bipolar disorder is an inherited disease. Although he’s rarely, if ever, felt manic, the thought is still unsettling.
    â€œI feel bad about Fariza,” Sid says to Megan. “I feel like I’m abandoning her.” He’s never worried about another kid before, but Fariza is different. He wonders if this is what he’ll feel like with Wain: protective, concerned, guilty.
    â€œI know,” Megan replies. “But she’s not your responsibility, you know. It’s great that she’s so comfortable with you, but she’ll manage, I promise.”
    â€œYou think?”
    Megan nods. “It’s going to be a long time before she gets over what happened to her, if she ever does, but I think she knows she’s safe here. And we’ll talk about you every day. I’ll remind her that you’re coming back.”
    â€œOkay.” Sid’s backpack is stuffed to overflowing. He puts it on the floor and sits beside Megan on the bed. “I gave Fariza a sketchbook of her own. We work on it every