Emma Swan loved to dance.
Her mommy made her ballerina dresses, colourful headbands, and brushed her cheeks with fairy glitter. For her third birthday, she had a fairy party. She played leap frog and pin the tail on the donkey with all the little kids who lived on her street. She wore the super special new dancing dress her mother had given her. It was shiny and purple and green and as soft as feathers and swished when she twirled fast enough. Her mother told her it was a little bit magic, and if she learnt how to use it, it might make her fly. She said that when Emma was a little bigger, she could wear the dress to lessons at the dancing school down town.
A month later, Emma woke up to the muffled sounds of her mother crying across the hall. Emma slid out of bed and ran across the hall to the bathroom.
"Mommy?" Emma asked uncertainly as she peeked cautiously through the doorway, "Why are you crying?"
Her mother turned to her, her face streaming with tears and a big grin on her face.
She scooped Emma up and swung her into the air.
"Because I'm happy, little girl!" Emma's mother exclaimed, her voice full of joy and excitement and disbelief.
"Then why are you crying?" Emma asked, her little brow furrowed with concern that her mummy rushed to kiss away.
"Sometimes I cry when I'm very, very happy," she told Emma, "They're happy tears, don't worry."
"Good!" Emma smiled in response and wrapped her arms around her mother's neck. "I don't like sad tears."
Emma's mommy squeezed her tight and laughed.
"You have such a sweet heart Emmy. I love you."
"I love you more Mommy!"
"Impossible, little girl - I love you most." Emma's mommy smiled so hard the happiness shone on her cheeks as she whispered to Emma. "You know what, Emma? We are going to have a little baby!"
"A baby?" Emma's eyes widened in wonder.
"Yes! You're going to have a little brother or sister!"
"Oooooh!" Emma said
When Daddy got home, they told him about the baby and he whooped and picked her Mommy right up off the ground and spun around in circles. Her Mommy wasn't the only one who cried happy tears.
The happiness didn't last very long though. Her daddy lost his job and suddenly Emma wasn't going to start dance classes anymore. Her mommy told her it was because she didn't need them – she already danced like her feet had wings. She had been born a dancer.
But late one night Emma heard her parents arguing. They been arguing more and more lately, but tonight it was worse. Much, much worse. They got so loud that Emma could hear every word. They argued about money. About mortgages. About Emma, and the little brother or sister. About how Emma was a foster child. Emma sat in her bed and listened to their sadness and worry and frustration and anger seeping through her wall. She felt their uncertainty and it struck up fear within her heart, because her parents always knew what to do whenever things went wrong. They had never been afraid before. Eventually the yelling stopped, and Emma heard crying, it was her mommy again, but her tears didn't sound happy anymore.
Her mommy and daddy cried again when they sat her down and told her they couldn't look after her anymore and that she would have to live somewhere else. Emma cried because they cried, but she didn't really understand what it all meant until she was sitting on a bunk bed in a group home with all the other kids who didn't have parents anymore. When it got dark and her parents hadn't come to pick her back up, and when they didn't come the next night, or the next, Emma cried herself to sleep.
Her social worker, Therese, brought her the special dancing dress her mommy made for her. Emma held the dress and stroked the sparkly material, but she didn't feel like dancing. All the magic had gone out of the dress, so Emma cried again until she didn't have any more tears, and then she folded up the dress and put in the box of special things under her bed. She liked her jeans better anyway. You couldn't scratch your knees when you were wearing jeans.
The next day Therese took her to meet her new family. The foster parents smiled at her and introduced themselves and said she could call them Mommy Lisa and Daddy Frank. Emma shook her head and said she didn't have a mommy or a daddy. Their smiles faltered a little, but then they brightened again and said they liked to be called Lisa and Frank too.
As the years and foster homes went by, Emma's memories of the Swans faded. She forgot what games she played at her fairy birthday party, forgot the name of the little boy who lived next door. One day when they were learning about family trees at school, she realised she couldn't remember her parents' faces. That day she waited until she got home, and then went to her room and held the dancing dress and cried.
The older she got, the less she remembered until eventually all she had were their names, the feeling of being loved, and the baby that she never got to meet. Mostly she didn't think about them, but when she did, she still wondered if the baby was a little brother or a little sister. She wondered where they all were, and if they were happy, and if the Swans ever wondered about her.