The Day Everything Changed: Welcome Home, Baby!

Emma Sullivan was seven years old, and she had never been so excited in her entire life.

For months, she had watched her mommy's belly grow bigger and bigger, like a balloon being slowly inflated at a birthday party. She had felt the baby kick—first just a tiny flutter, like a butterfly landing on her hand, and then stronger kicks that made her giggle and clap her hands. She had helped Daddy paint the nursery yellow, even though she had wanted pink or purple or rainbow, and she had placed stuffed animals in a neat row along the windowsill, each one waiting patiently for a new friend to join them.

"Any day now," Dr. Martinez had said at their last appointment, and Emma had written the words in her diary in her best handwriting, underlining them three times.

Now it was Saturday morning, the most perfect Saturday morning the world had ever seen. Sunlight streamed through Emma's window, painting golden stripes across her quilt. Birds sang their hello songs in the big oak tree outside. And best of all, Emma's tummy was doing flip-flops because today was the day—finally, absolutely, completely the day—that she was going to meet her baby brother or sister for the very first time.

Emma jumped out of bed before her feet even touched the floor. She was already wearing her favorite dress, the one with the flowers that Daddy said made her look like a garden, because she had put it on before she went to sleep last night. She had practiced putting on makeup in the bathroom mirror with her eyes closed, pretending she was a grown-up getting ready for something important. (Mommy had said no real makeup until she was sixteen, but Emma was pretty sure that didn't apply to practice.)

"Emma!" Daddy's voice called from downstairs. "Time for breakfast! The hospital called!"

The hospital called!

Emma's feet made thunderous sounds as she raced down the stairs, taking two steps at a time. She nearly crashed into the hallway wall, caught herself on the banister, and slid into the kitchen where Daddy was standing by the phone, his face doing something strange. He was smiling, but his eyes were shiny, and he kept clearing his throat like he had swallowed a frog.

"Sweetheart," Daddy said, and his voice wobbled a little. "Mommy called. The baby is coming. Right now. Today is the day."

Emma screamed. She couldn't help it. She screamed so loud that Mr. Patterson, who lived next door and was eighty-seven years old and very sensitive to noise, probably heard her through three walls and a fence. She screamed and jumped up and down and hugged Daddy around his waist so tightly that he made an "oof" sound and pretended to fall over.

"We're going to the hospital right now," Daddy said, and he was laughing and crying at the same time. "Are you ready to meet your baby?"

"I was born ready!" Emma announced, and she wasn't sure where she had heard that phrase, but it seemed exactly right for the moment.

---

The drive to Sunshine Valley Hospital felt like the longest car ride Emma had ever taken, even though it was only fifteen minutes. Daddy kept saying things like "breathe, Emma, breathe," which was silly because she had been breathing her whole life and she knew how to do it perfectly well. She pressed her nose against the window and watched the world blur past—the bakery where Mommy sometimes bought croissants, the library with the big stone lions out front, the park where she always begged to stop and play.

The park.

Emma saw it just as Daddy turned onto Hospital Drive, and something made her look at it for a long moment. The swings were empty, swaying gently in the breeze. The slides gleamed in the morning sun. And there, sitting on a bench near the entrance, was a dog.

Not just any dog. This was Milo.

Milo was old—everyone in the neighborhood knew Milo. He belonged to Mrs. Chen, who walked him every morning at exactly seven-thirty and every afternoon at exactly four-fifteen, like clockwork. Milo was a golden retriever with fur the color of autumn leaves and eyes that seemed to understand everything. He had been around forever, it seemed. Emma remembered being a tiny kindergartner and feeling nervous on her first day of school, and Milo had been there in the neighborhood, sitting on someone's lawn, watching her with those calm, knowing eyes.

Now Milo sat on that bench, and he looked right at Emma's car as it passed. For just a moment, it seemed like he was waving or nodding or something, but that was silly. Dogs didn't wave. Dogs didn't nod. Dogs didn't do any of the human things that people did.

But Milo had always seemed different from other dogs.

"Emma, honey, we're here," Daddy said, pulling into the hospital parking lot. "Ready?"

Emma took a deep breath—a real one this time, because she actually needed it. Her heart was pounding like a drum in a marching band. She was about to become a big sister. She was about to meet someone who would be in her life forever, who would be her partner in adventures, her ally in arguments with parents, her friend through everything.

"Ready," she whispered.

---

The hospital room was bright and full of flowers.

Emma stood in the doorway, clutching a stuffed bunny named Buttons to her chest, and watched her Mommy lie in the big bed. Mommy looked tired but happy, her hair all messy and her face all shiny with little drops of sweat. There was a monitor beeping beside her, and tubes and wires that made everything look very medical and important.

"Emma!" Mommy reached out her arms, and Emma ran to her, carefully climbing onto the edge of the bed. "Oh, my big girl. Look at you."

"Mommy, I—" Emma started, but the words got stuck in her throat. "Is the baby here? Is it really real? Can I see?"

"Not yet, sweetheart," Mommy said gently. "The baby is still coming. We have to wait a little longer. But soon. Very soon."

Soon. Emma could handle soon. She was good at waiting. She had waited nine months already, and she could wait a few more hours.

But waiting turned out to be much harder than Emma expected.

---

The waiting room was boring.

Emma sat in a plastic chair that squeaked every time she moved, and she watched the clock on the wall tick-tock-tick-tock. Daddy had gone to get coffee and a sandwich, because Mommy had told him he needed to eat something and he had looked like he might fall over. There was a magazine table with old copies of People and Time and something called "Cat Fancy" that Emma thought looked interesting, but she was too nervous to read.

Tick-tock. Tick-tock.

A nurse came by and told her that Mommy was doing great, that the baby was doing great, that everything was progressing perfectly. Progressing. Emma didn't know exactly what that meant, but it sounded good. Progressing sounded like moving forward, and moving forward sounded like meeting the baby, and meeting the baby sounded like the best thing ever.

Tick-tock. Tick-tock.

Emma got up and walked around the waiting room, examining the posters on the walls. There was one about washing your hands. There was one about eating your vegetables. There was one about what to do when you see someone who needs help, with a cartoon kid giving a thumbs up. And there was one about being a big brother or sister, with a picture of a kid holding a baby and smiling like it was the easiest, happiest thing in the world.

Was it really like that? Emma wondered. Was being a big sibling really that simple and perfect?

She thought about her friend Sophie, who had become a big sister two years ago. Sophie had told Emma that at first she felt sad and angry and confused, because her parents didn't have as much time for her anymore. But then she had also said that eventually she loved her baby sister more than anything, that watching her grow up was magical, that they were best friends now.

Sophie had also said it was okay to feel mixed-up feelings, that it didn't mean she was a bad person or that she didn't love her sister.

Emma wasn't sure what she felt. She felt excited. She