THE SISTER I NEVER FORGOT

In 1996 San Francisco, as despair over AIDS gives way to hope, a queer hospice caregiver seeks to reclaim the little sister given up for adoption—and her voice. 

Jac sees beauty everywhere: in sepia-toned smog, in the dilapidated Victorian she shares with four housemates, and even in death as she guides hospice clients toward the end of life. Into her peace with endings, an unexpected beginning disrupts everything: her father confesses to giving up Jac’s little sister for adoption when Jac was a toddler.  

As Jac searches for her sister, in a car accident she sustains a throat injury that steals her voice. Undeterred, she and her best friend, a performance artist recovering from AIDS, follow leads to Nebraska, where Jac falls for a charismatic social worker for the unhoused. 

But when Jac accepts that her persistent mutism is psychological, the search for her sister and her voice become one. To reclaim her sibling, she must make sense of the haunting memories of her now-deceased pregnant mother, uncover long-buried family secrets, and risk her relationship with the one person who might have answers: her father. In the end, Jac learns that life can be hard at times, but there will always be people along the way who are uniquely qualified to support you.

This novel was inspired by my own search for my little sister and my work as a caregiver for people with AIDS in the mid-1990s.