The Year of My Miraculous Reappearance (23 page)

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Authors: Catherine Ryan Hyde

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I don't know how long I sat there staring at him. Might have been just a few minutes, or maybe even an hour. I wasn't keeping track.

Then he woke up and rolled over, and he looked so happy to see me.

“Thynnie, hi. Hi, Thynnie. Morning. Thynnie, morning.” It wasn't morning, exactly, but I knew what he meant. He meant he woke up.

He got out of bed and ran over to me and I picked him up. He was heavy, but I picked him up anyway. I just did. And I danced him around and around the room, and I told him all about how it was going to be, in three years, when he came to live with me. It made him really happy. Maybe he didn't
understand all the words, but he knew I was happy, so he got happy, too. He dropped his head back and threw his arms out wide like he was flying. The look on his face was just the greatest thing. I knew that for the next three years, I'd never forget it. No matter how long it seemed or how tough it got, for the next three years I would never once forget that smile.

Catherine Ryan Hyde is the author of
Becoming Chloe, Love in the Present Tense, Electric God, Walter's Purple Heart,
and the bestselling
Pay It Forward,
which was made into a Warner Bros. film starring Kevin Spacey and Helen Hunt.
Electric God
has been adapted for film and will star Nicolas Cage as Hayden Reese.

Catherine Ryan Hyde is also an award-winning short story writer and a professional speaker. She lives in California and writes full-time.

THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are
the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House
Children's Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

KNOPF, BORZOI BOOKS, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hyde, Catherine Ryan.
The year of my miraculous reappearance / Catherine Ryan Hyde. — 1st ed.
p. cm.

SUMMARY: Thirteen-year-old Cynnie has had to deal with her mother's alcoholism
and stream of boyfriends all her life, but when her grandparents take custody of
her brother, who has Down syndrome, Cynnie becomes self-destructive and
winds up in court-mandated Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.
eISBN: 978-0-307-49345-3
[1. Alcoholism—Fiction. 2. Emotional problems—Fiction. 3. Brothers and sisters—
Fiction. 4. Down syndrome—Fiction. 5. People with mental disabilities—Fiction.
6. Self-actualization (Psychology)—Fiction. 7. Alcoholics
Anonymous—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.H96759Yea 2007
[Fic]—dc22
2006029194