For years, the silence in our home was built of unspoken grief and the echoes of five lost pregnancies.

Two weeks later, we brought Ruth home. She had been abandoned on Christmas Eve near the city’s grandest tree, a tiny, silent infant who couldn’t have been more different from her boisterous sister.

As the years passed, we were honest with the girls about their origins. We used the gentle shorthand of many adoptive families: Ruth grew in my heart, while Stephanie grew in my belly. For a long time, that explanation was enough for them. But as they entered their teenage years, the inherent differences in their temperaments began to create a dangerous friction. Stephanie was a storm of confidence, a girl who commanded every room and excelled at everything she touched.

Ruth was a quiet observer, an old soul who studied the moods of others to figure out how to best disappear. She was kindness personified, but in the shadow of Stephanie’s brilliance, kindness often felt invisible.

The rivalry between them grew teeth as they reached seventeen. It wasn’t just the typical bickering over clothes or friends; it was a deep, tectonic shift in the foundation of our family. Stephanie accused Ruth of being babied and fragile, while Ruth resented Stephanie’s constant need for the spotlight. I tried to treat them equally, but I soon realized that treating two different hearts the same way isn’t always fair. Loving them with the same intensity didn’t mean they experienced that love in the same way.