by Kira Peikoff
“Honey, if you saw what I saw today, you wouldn’t try to negotiate. On meds, you’ll be much more stable.”
I can’t decide which is worse: being fuzzy and numb, with a cotton ball for a brain, or being at the mercy of a delusion that could strike anytime.
“The longer you put this off—” he starts.
“Okay, okay, I get it.”
“So you’ll go to Presbyterian tomorrow?”
“I guess. How long do you think it will take?”
“Three weeks at most.”
A lump rises in my throat. I picture Abby falling asleep without our favorite nightly ritual—me reading her one chapter of a book aloud.
“I’ve never spent more than one night away from her.”
“I know,” Rob says, “but it’s more important for you to get well.”
The hell I will soon enter comes rushing back from a place I’ve long repressed: the sterile beds, the moaning patients, the brisk nurses, the coarse gowns, the shitty showers and the prickly armpit hair, no razors allowed …
“I don’t want her to see me there. It’s too awful.”
“You don’t want her to visit?”
“No. It might kill me, but I’d rather be dead than leave her those memories.”
“Fair enough.” He shakes his head as if contemplating something surprising.
“What?”
“Even with all this, you still want to protect her the most.”
I smile sadly. “Isn’t that what it means to be a mother?”
* * *
The next morning, I wake up at the crack of dawn to pack a suitcase and say good-bye. I still can’t believe this is what my life has come to, but then I think back to spraining my ankle on the muddy hill, and running barefoot into the middle of the street, and I know I’m doing the right thing. It’s no way to exist. I got better once; I will fight to get there again.
When I open Abby’s door, she scrambles to sit up in bed, as if bracing for an unpleasant encounter. It’s all too obvious how much she has come to dread my presence.
I hang back in the doorway, giving her space. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart.”
“For what?” she asks.
“Being sick. I have to go somewhere to get better, and it might take a while.”
“How long?”
“A few months.”
“Oh.” She nods slowly, looking far too burdened for her eleven years. I yearn to fold her into my arms. An old memory resurfaces of her as a happy toddler plopping into my lap. God, how I miss the simple joy of her little hand clutching my leg.
Now I venture to the edge of her bed. She flinches but doesn’t scoot away. A victory. “I’m going to miss you so much. But I’ll be better when I come back.”
“How do you know?” Her eyes probe mine with a skepticism I haven’t noticed in her before: the doubt that is the hallmark of growing up.
“Because I’m going to work as hard as I can. And whenever I set my mind to something, I get it done.”
I think: It’s why you exist.
“Okay,” she says, unconvinced. I realize I haven’t been the greatest model of achievement in her lifetime, having burrowed into my supporting roles of wife and mother, leaving no trace of the fearless journalist I used to be.
I silently vow to do something great again when I recover—to make her proud.
But I don’t tell her; I can’t bear to see that skepticism creep into her face again.
“You seem fine now,” she says. “Are you sure you have to leave?”
It takes all my self-discipline to share my shame aloud, even though I know it’s not a personal failing; it’s the hand I’ve been dealt.
“I’ve been struggling,” I admit. “The … vision I see sometimes, it’s a bad sign. It means I’m sick, even if I don’t always feel that way.”
“Oh, Mommy.” She stuns me by flinging her arms around my neck. “I hope you get better really soon.”
I hug her back, luxuriating in the weight of her head on my shoulder. I rock her gently, picturing my reserves of strength and love flowing into her, fortifying her for the tough days and weeks to come.
As for the guilt, I’ll keep that to myself. It’s contrary to nature for a mother to abandon her child, even if it is for her, as everything is, in the end.
ABBY
At school drop-off in the morning, as the other kids are laughing with their friends and rushing to first period, my heart feels heavier than all the textbooks in my bag. No one knows I’ve just said good-bye to my mom for who knows how long.
My parents’ silver car inches out of the lot and disappears. I don’t want to be a baby and start crying, so I tuck my chin and walk to class like everyone else. But I feel weirdly alone in the middle of the crowd. My dad is driving her to the hospital in New York City and he’s not getting back until tonight, so for the first time, I’m going to come home from school today to an empty house.
The day passes slowly—art with Mrs. Miller and English with Mr. Avery drag on until third-period science, with Mr. Harrison. My only distraction from thinking about my mom in a mental hospital is solving the mystery of my genetics report.
When Mr. Harrison finishes his lecture on gravity and Newton’s apple, the whole class rushes out to lunch. I wait for the last kid to leave the room, then sit in a red plastic chair on the other side of his desk.
“Hey there,” he says cheerfully. “What’s up?”
“Can you help me with something?”
“Sure, as long as you don’t mind if I eat my lunch.” He sticks his hand inside a brown paper bag and takes out a sandwich sealed in tinfoil.
My stomach growls as he unwraps it, but this is more important than food.
“It’s about this.” I give him the printout from my backpack of my genetic report: it shows how my DNA map overlaps with my mom’s and with JH0502’s—even though they don’t overlap with each other. On the printout, there are pie charts and percentages and colorful pictures of chromosome pairs spread out from one to twenty-three.
“Oh, is this from our class project?”
“Sort of. After we all did the saliva test, some weird stuff happened.” I tell him that a stranger on the site invited me to connect, since we share some common heritage. I tell him about our messages, the long-lost cousin thing, and the failed meet-ups.
Then I fib. “My mom also decided to take the DNA test to research her ancestry,” I say quickly. “But her report shows that she and the stranger are not cousins—even though I’m, like, related to them both. So, I don’t get it.”
Mr. Harrison seems troubled. “You said this stranger tried to meet up with you in real life?”
“Yeah.”
“But you’ve never actually met her?”
I think of the lunch date she flaked on with no explanation. “Nope.”
“Hmmm.” He glances at the printouts. “Well, she obviously lied to you. She is not your mother’s cousin. I would be very careful, Abigail.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s very suspicious for any adult to try to meet up with a minor over the Internet. I literally can’t think of one good reason. Have you told your parents?”
“Yeah, they said they didn’t know her. But she’s still related to me, right? I mean, DNA doesn’t lie.”
“We all have hundreds of distant relations, so a slight overlap with someone is not meaningful.”
“But why would she lie about being on my mom’s side? And she asked if I had a brother! It was like she knew.”
He makes a disgusted face. “First of all, half the population has a brother. And sadly, there are some sinister people out there who will make up anything to trap you.”
Exactly what my parents said. I guess I should have believed them after all.
“For all you know,” he says, scanning the printouts, “she could have contacted lots of other minors on the site who happened to share some random segment of DNA and told them the same story, asked them t
he same questions, and you happened to be one who—”
He breaks off as his eyes widen. “Son of a gun.”
“What?”
“There’s a mistake in your mother’s report.” He points at the page. “You and she can’t share forty-nine point nine percent of your DNA. That statistic is impossible.”
“Oh, yeah.” I wave it off. “Someone must have messed up.”
“Jesus,” he mutters. “I thought this company was legit. Their labs are CLIA approved—I checked into it before our group project.”
“Oh well.” I take out another, heavier stack of papers from my backpack. “Anyway, here’s all the raw data from where my report overlaps with the stranger’s. I was hoping you could tell me which genes we share?”
Now that I know she’s a creepy stalker, I would love reassurance from Mr. Harrison that our DNA doesn’t match in any important places. The last thing I need to worry about is whether I’ve inherited genes that will make me both crazy and evil.
The data’s long strings of numbers and letters, like gs1027 and rs12885300 (C; C), ate up all the ink in Riley’s printer. It’s gibberish to me, but Mr. Harrison squints at it and types some stuff into his computer.
“I’m researching on the SNPedia,” he explains, as if that clears things up. “It’s a big encyclopedia of genetic information.”
“Oh, cool.”
“Wait a sec. You share mitochondrial DNA?” A few seconds pass with him just staring at our reports. Then he gives me the strangest look—like he’s seeing me for the first time. He presses two fingers between his eyebrows the way I do when my head hurts.
“Is everything okay?”
He clears his throat. “Yeah. Sorry.”
“What’s wrong?”
After an awkward pause, he says, “Abigail, have you discussed this with your parents?”
“No, should I?”
“I think so.”
“Why?”
“I’m sorry; it’s really not my place to say.”
“Um, okay.” As I jump up, blood rushes to my head.
“Wait. Promise me you won’t meet up with anyone you don’t know in real life?” He extends his pinkie to swear on. I curl mine around it.
“I promise.”
* * *
After school, I’m stuck waiting in the parking lot for the bus. It’s slow, because there’s only one assigned to our district and it stops at the high school first. The five-minute drive home will probably take me an hour. Riley’s at dance practice, my dad’s still in the city, and none of my other friends take the bus. It sucks watching everyone else get picked up by their moms.
I hope my mom is okay. I hope I’m okay. I really don’t know what to think anymore. Why won’t anyone tell me what’s going on? As soon as my dad gets home, I’m going to ask him once and for all. I’ll blame it on Mr. Harrison. Because now I know my parents have been hiding something from me. Something bad. Mr. Harrison must have discovered some horrible mutation in my DNA. And my parents haven’t told me because they don’t want me to freak out.
I did have a headache the other night, plus I’ve been tired, and not very hungry. What if I’m sick and everyone knows but me? What if—oh my God. What if I’m dying?
I double over on the bench, holding my stomach.
“Abigail? Are you okay?”
Mrs. Miller is walking quickly toward me. Her black blazer is flapping in the wind, and her long skirt swishes around her ankles.
“You look sick,” she says. “Do you need help?”
I want to fake being fine, but I can’t. “I … don’t feel so good,” I admit.
“Where are your parents?”
“Um, they’re away. I’m waiting for the bus.”
“Do you want a ride home?” She holds up her car keys. “I’m happy to drive you.”
“Really?” I want to hug her. And then climb into bed until my dad gets home.
“Sure, let’s go.”
I follow her into a blue Jetta in the parking lot that smells like it was just cleaned. I tell her my address, which she puts in her phone’s GPS, and off we go. My breath is still coming in short gasps, but I don’t want to have a panic attack in front of the coolest teacher in school, so I concentrate on getting it under control. Breathe in, breathe out.
She glances over at me, and I know she can tell I’m suffering. “I’m here for you, you know. In case you want to talk.”
“Thanks.”
I don’t say anything else, but she’s still watching me out the corner of her eye. I pretend not to notice. There’s a small smile on her lips, like she’s smiling to herself rather than me.
I realize I still don’t know much about her. She started at our school only six weeks ago, after our last art teacher left without warning. One day in March, Mrs. Blake stopped showing up—a family crisis, the principal told us. For about two weeks after that, our first-period class was stuck with different substitutes until Mrs. Miller started, and quickly won over the class’s affection with her relaxed rules and cheerful personality.
“So … do you live in town?” I ask her. Small talk is a good way to calm yourself down, I’ve learned. It forces you to act normal.
“Yeah, about five minutes from school. Makes for a nice commute.”
“Were you always an art teacher?”
She flashes me a sideways glance. “Not always.”
“Oh.” I wait for her to say more, but she doesn’t. “What else did you do?” I ask.
“Different things. I like art, though. It’s fun, and the best part—no tests, right?”
“Yeah, totally. Everyone loves your class.”
“Thanks, I appreciate that.”
After a few more minutes, my house comes into view along the bumpy road. As usual, the streets are empty.
“Well, thanks for the ride.”
“Of course.” As we pull into the driveway, she hesitates. “Abigail, are you sure you’re okay by yourself?”
The more I think about it, the more I’m dreading being alone. If I am dying, how long do I have left? What if I start to breathe so fast I pass out? Who will help me?
“You know,” she volunteers, “I can wait with you until your parents get home if you want.”
“Only my dad is coming home. My mom … went away.”
“Oh, okay. Well, it’s up to you.”
“I don’t want to take up your time …”
“Don’t be silly! It’s my pleasure.”
I accept her offer with relief.
Inside, I give her a quick tour of our downstairs, pour her a glass of Diet Coke, and turn on the TV in the living room. We settle into the couch and find an entertaining show on Animal Planet about puppies, and soon I find myself relaxing slightly. Between her comforting presence and the cute dogs, I can almost convince myself that everything is normal. But the second my dad gets home …
I snuggle under a heavy throw blanket my mom knitted years ago, back when we were all happy and healthy. Maybe the fraying yarn still carries some of those good vibes.
After a while, I notice Mrs. Miller distractedly checking her phone.
“Do you want to watch something else?” I ask.
She puts her phone down with a guilty smile. “No, this is fine.”
When the show finishes a half hour later, we both get restless. I’m obsessing, and she keeps staring out our front window with obvious impatience.
“You can go,” I say. “I’m fine, honestly.”
“Oh no, I can wait.”
We change the channel to a musical theater show with terrible singing and dancing. It’s so bad, it’s perfect. We take turns making fun of the characters. My jokes are silly, but hers are surprisingly mean—and funny. It’s shocking to hear myself giggle.
“Thank you for staying,” I tell her. “Seriously.”
She grins. “Anytime.”
That’s when my dad’s Honda pulls into the driveway. We both jump at the sound, even though we’ve been exp
ecting him. My chest instantly tightens. It’s getting dark outside, and he gets out of the car in the shadows. We can’t see his expression.
“There he is!” she says. “Finally.”
We walk to the door. I notice she lags a few steps behind me.
When I open it, he gives me a tired smile. “Hi, sweetheart.” He bends down to hug me, but the second he notices her, he freezes. Then he sags against the doorframe; his mouth opens, but no sound comes out. I stumble backward, confused.
“You …?” my dad chokes out. “How …?”
I’ve never seen him so spooked.
“It’s just Mrs. Miller!” I reassure him. “From school. She drove me home.”
She steps out from behind me. “Please don’t be upset.” She sounds strangely emotional, like she’s trying not to cry. “I’ve been waiting to see you for so long.”
PART FOUR
JILLIAN
“I know you weren’t expecting me. But look how things worked out!”
I risk a smile. It isn’t a straightforward smile, and I wonder if he can pick up on its complexity, on the suffering that shades my joy. Can he glimpse what I’ve been through? It wouldn’t surprise me; the humiliation and despair are embedded in me like shrapnel. First from the women’s prison, now a distant but traumatic memory; and then from my failure to resurrect anything like a career in the aftermath. Not to mention the bitter loneliness that stains the life of a former felon, who is no longer an acceptable friend or colleague or daughter.
All along, one desire kept me going.
“You—?” He points in shock at me, then Abby. “You know her?”
I feel my smile expand now, breaking through the pain. “I do.”
He’s speechless—and not in a good way. He rubs his eyes, his gold ring glinting in the doorway’s yellow light. I want to rip it off. But I’ve prepared myself for a less-than-ideal reunion. Claire’s toxic influence on him won’t disappear overnight, even if she’s out of the picture.
“I just …” He blinks rapidly. “I can’t …”
The things I ache to tell him hover on my tongue, stifled for too many years by abandonment and despair. My nerves spasm with relief. All the years of wondering, waiting, and looking have not been for nothing. Up close, he looks more dignified than I remember, now that his hair has gone salt-and-pepper gray, his face has thinned, and the wrinkles around his eyes have deepened. These marks of time upset me: a whole decade that could have been ours—lost. It takes all my discipline not to throw my arms around him, this man I no longer know, but who has fueled me through all these painful years.