Katie and Brooke were friends. Then they were sisters. And then the honeymoon was over, for a while.
When Katie was in third grade, her adoptive family asked friends Barb and Mark Ylitalo to care for her as they faced the cancer diagnosis of a relative. The Ylitalos agreed, moving Katie into the bedroom, and life, of their biological daughter, Brooke, also a third-grader.
Barb, a pediatric oncology nurse, imagined instant bonding, late-night chats, shared clothes. Instead, Brooke fell apart.
"Sharing everything with Katie got to be too much for me," she said.
Barb and Mark, an insurance agent, shifted to Plan B: separate bedrooms, separate classrooms, separate summer camps. The relationship remained cool, with playground drama, fights around friends and shared distaste for the constant question: Are you actually sisters?
"Katie was a girly-girl, who changed her nail color every day," said 5-foot-10 Brooke, 18, a senior at Wayzata High School also studying at Bethel College.
"Brooke was a little messy," said 5-foot Katie, 17, a senior at Buffalo High School.
Once, they didn't speak for six weeks. In the fall of eighth grade, Barb and her mother, Jane Johnson, "Nana," took the girls to India for 16 days.
