“But you thought I was okay.”
“Not okay, but … I mean, you weren’t like me. I didn’t have anybody and you have all those friends…”
“You mean my Instagram followers? Lonely, scared boys looking for someone to tell them it gets better?”
“What about your real friends? Your soccer team. And Sam. You had Sam. You were happy. You had someone to love…”
“I don’t love Sam. He’s fun and he likes me and all. But mostly he was just there. And when you shut me out—”
“Shut you out? That not what happened—”
“I needed someone to … whatever. Make the house not so quiet. Not so alone without them.”
“I was alone, too. You could’ve said something.”
“But you never asked, Archie. You never fucking asked.”
* * *
My birth certificate arrived via UPS two days before our flight, but I was too jumpy to open it. I texted Josie and begged her to come over. She’d gone home again the night before when she wasn’t feeling well. At least that’s what she said. She took off so fast I wondered if I’d done something wrong.
Josie arrived looking pale and shaky. But she took the envelope and tore open the top. The document was a crisp, blue rectangle with a raised seal. State of New Jersey Certificate of Live Birth. On the top line was the name of the child: Archie Austin, born April 19, 2001. St. Francis Medical Center, Trenton, NJ. Archie Austin; that was me. Name of mother: Talia Austin. Date of birth: July 16, 1982. Mailing address: 432 Eastern Boulevard, Apt. 5H. Trenton, NJ. The line for father was left blank.
I wasn’t sure what I should be feeling. Talia Austin. Was her name supposed to stir something in me? “1982,” I said. “She was nineteen when she had me.”
“Eighteen,” said Josie quietly. “Her birthday’s in July. Eighteen like us.”
I sat there wondering what Archie Austin’s life would have been like. He had a cool name. Archie Austin. Too cool for me. If I’d grown up with Talia, would I have liked different things? Would I have been a different person if I grew up in a house that was, as Grandma called it, “culturally appropriate”? I reached for Josie’s hand. It was trembling. She seemed like she was fighting tears. This was one of those times where I really didn’t know how to read her feelings.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. “You thinking about your parents?”
Josie shook it off. “Today’s not about me,” she said. She grabbed my laptop. “Do you want to see her?”
One Facebook search later and she was there on the screen, flashing a big, wide smile in her profile picture.
“She’s pretty,” said Josie. “She looks like you.”
I guess she was, although she looked older than her age. Her photo wall gave me an instant glimpse into her life. Sometimes she wore her hair pulled back in a tight ponytail thing and sometimes it was down. She had chunky glasses like mine, but she only wore them for work. She lived in what looked like a nice little house in the suburbs. She worked as the manager at a restaurant connected to a hotel in a place called Burlington Township. McGwynn’s. Twenty-five-cent wing special on karaoke nights.
She had a medium-size black dog with a furry white chest, named Elsie, who dug giant holes and slept on furniture. She was religious, or at least spiritual. Her page was filled with inspirational quotes and links to self-help articles. There were men in her life, I guess, but her relationship status was “It’s complicated.” I wondered if any of those complications were my father. And she had a son. A son she’d decided to keep. Amos—my (half?) brother—looked like he was maybe six or seven years old. He was on a tee-ball team and liked to swim and play with his puppy. As far as I could tell, she seriously loved this kid. I scrolled down picture after picture of the two of them together. I watched him grow up in her photos and I saw all the fun they had together at carnivals and arcades and parks.
Josie made a call to the restaurant and confirmed that Talia would be working that day. “If we get right on the road we’ll be there before the dinner rush so the place won’t be busy. You’ll be able to talk.”
Five minutes later we were in the car and on our way to meet my birth mother. As soon as we hit the highway Josie fell asleep and I was glad. She needed rest and I needed time to think about what I was going to do. Would I just march in there and ask for the manager? Then what? “Hi, Talia, it’s me, your son. The one you gave up.” I wasn’t sure those words would even come out of my mouth. What if I made some other excuse for talking to her? Like I was planning a graduation party for me and my four friends. That way I could figure out if she was a nice person. Would she recognize me? Would she know who I was because I looked like Amos?
We arrived at the restaurant too soon. I wasn’t ready. I drove around for ten minutes before I settled on a parking spot. Josie woke up while I was circling. She must’ve known I was stalling.
When I finally parked, I sat behind the wheel taking deep breaths. “What if she’s not happy to see me? She gave me up for a reason. And I’m showing up here with a bunch of baggage. Not just the usual adopted kid baggage, but Sunnies baggage. Messed-up-plane-crash-orphan baggage.”
Josie grabbed my hand. “She’s gonna love you. She and Amos would be so lucky to have you in their lives.”
Lucas would disagree. I got a sick feeling thinking about how we’d treated each other since the crash. My baby brother needed me and I wasn’t there. And I’d needed him, too. But it was too late to turn back now. Not with Josie here holding my hand all the way across the parking lot.
When we stepped into the vestibule I could see her standing at the hostess desk. Her face was blocked by a specials sign on the door, but I recognized Talia’s striped shirt from the photo of her and Amos and Elsie at the dog park. Josie reached for the inner door, but I stopped her. I let a family of five go ahead of us. The two younger kids were arguing over a phone and the mother threatened to take it away if they kept this up. When she saw me watching, she became self-conscious and apologized for her children. I waved it off and let the door close.
“What’s wrong?” asked Josie.
“I don’t want to meet her. Not now.”
After eighteen years, my birth mother was less than ten feet away from me, but that was close enough for today. This woman with the big smile and over five hundred Facebook friends seemed like she’d made a pretty good life for herself. She had a cute kid and a dog, and a good job. She kinda looked like me and she had my smile. No doubt that she was my mother.
But she wasn’t my mom. My mom slept in my bed when I had a nightmare, made the lightest, airiest angel food cake in the world, and when she caught me drawing on the wall she gave me my first sketchbook and pencils. My dad waited in line two hours with me to show the great Stan Lee one of my drawings. And my brother was a soccer star and the coolest person I knew and he needed me. They were my family. Maybe someday I’d come back here to meet Talia and we’d sit down together over a big plate of cheap wings and we’d talk about our favorite movies and whether she can do that thing with her tongue where you turn it to the side like I can or if she’s a good artist. I’d ask her about why she had to give me away and we’d talk about Amos and Lucas and Mom and Dad and how much I loved them and how grateful I was that she’d allowed me to be their son.
But now I was going to Anguilla because that’s where they died. I needed to be there with Josie and my friends and to find out the truth. For me and Lucas and for Mom and Dad. I walked away from the restaurant and from my birth mother because I already had parents. Even if I couldn’t see or talk to them anymore, I already had parents.
* * *
On the morning of the flight, I drove to Josie’s house. I carried my bag up to the porch just as Jack opened the door. It was here in this exact spot where Jack ripped up my sketchbook and tossed the pages into a puddle. I wondered if he was remembering it, too. Even now, I felt anxious standing this close to him. I knew what he’d done to Josie’s softball coach. How did he feel about her boyfrien
d?
“Josie’s upstairs,” he said. “She’s still not feeling great.” He stepped aside to let me in. I put down my bag and we lingered by the stairs in silence.
I’m not good with silence. “I heard the meeting with your lawyer and the prosecutor went okay. Not that it’s ever good to meet with a prosecutor, but if you have to, this was a good one, I guess. Right?”
Jack slid his hands back and forth over each other. “Still details to work out. Paperwork stuff. But they lifted the travel ban. They’re letting me get on the plane.”
“I’m glad,” I said. “I know you’re coming isn’t that you believe someone sabotaged the plane. But that’s okay. We just wouldn’t want to do this without you.”
“Thanks.”
“For what it’s worth,” I said, “that guy deserved it. And more. I wish I’d been there to see it. Not that you needed me there. So how’d you get the charges dropped?”
“Believe it or not, the sonofabitch went to the D.A. and said he started the fight. Even claimed that we got in an argument about a parking space and he hit me with the wine bottle. Guess he didn’t want anyone asking why I kicked his ass. Luckily none of the witnesses saw how it actually started. It kinda killed their case.”
Jack seemed calmer. Less angry. I started to relax around him. “Probably no glory in prosecuting one of the Orphans of Sunny Horizons,” I said.
“She’s going to the police when we get back,” he said.
“I know. She told me.”
“It’s gonna suck for her.”
“Yeah. But she doesn’t have to do it alone.”
“No. Not anymore.”
Josie appeared at the top of the stairs in an oversize sweatshirt and leggings. Her hair was up and she looked tired. She was lugging a giant pink suitcase she could barely move. Jack and I both rushed up at the same time to help her carry it down the stairs. For a moment we jostled over the handle, each trying to take over the heavy lifting. That was a battle I was sure to lose.
Josie sighed heavily and Jack let go of the handle. He gave me a nod. This time, we each grabbed an end. The case was heavier than I expected, and as we carried it down the steps, I was glad to share the load with him.
In the car to the airport, all three of us sat in the back. Jack was on one side, me on the other with Josie in between us. None of us had any idea if we were headed into something crazy and dangerous. We had no idea of what we might find. But at least we were going to find it together.
18
DAYANA
I thought we were safe. We’d made it through security, stopped for breakfast burritos, and spent an hour in the waiting area without anybody in the airport recognizing los huérfanos de Sunny Horizons. It had been eight months since the crash and the novelty had mostly worn off. People had moved on to some other horrible tragedy: girl down the well, missing hiker in the woods. But you’re never truly safe from the assholes of the world.
As we lined up to board the plane, two idiots in flip-flops and board shorts came running up to Josie and Jack like they were celebrities.
“Hey, it is you guys! The Sunnies, right? It’s all of you. I told you, dickhead.”
“Holy crap, are you, like, all getting on this plane together? Doesn’t that freak your shit out?”
“Can we get a selfie?”
Archie stepped in front of Josie protectively and Harrison covered his face with his briefcase. I saw the flash in Jack’s eyes as his fingers curled into a fist. Before he could land himself in airport jail, I stepped in front. “No selfies today, fuckwads. Go away.”
The smaller of the two fuckwads looked me up and down. “Who the hell are you supposed to be?”
“I’m sorry. I should’ve ID’d myself. I’m Dayana, the other one. And if you don’t crawl away in a fucking hurry I will walk over to the desk and tell the nice lady in the jacket that you two were bragging that you know how to break into the cockpit during a flight.” Johnny Flip-Flop tried to call my bluff, but when I started walking with purpose toward the desk, he and his asshole buddy went scattering, calling me unpleasant names under their breath.
Jack’s hand unclenched.
Archie sighed. “Can I take you everywhere I go?”
“Sure. I’ll be your designated dickhead repellant.”
Josie smiled. “And you thought there was no reason for you to come with us.”
“I’m glad I’m here,” I said.
“Me too,” said Harrison, finally emerging from behind his briefcase.
“Do me a favor though,” said Josie. “Don’t ever call yourself ‘the other one’ again.”
I tried to imagine what it must’ve been like for Jack, Josie, Archie, and Harrison, waiting to get on that plane. For weeks, they’d been excited, looking forward to this trip and to getting answers about their parents. But now it was here. Now they would actually have to sit on an airplane, buckle themselves in, and fly over the ocean.
Archie babbled nonstop about what movies he hoped they’d have on board. Jack put in his earbuds to shut out the world, but couldn’t stop looking out the window of the terminal. Josie made half a dozen trips to the restroom. Each time she came out, she looked greener than the last. Harrison stared at his three-ring binder full of research on plane crashes. I suggested he stash it back in the briefcase before any other passengers could see it. Yet somehow, with everything the four of them had going on that morning, I was the one who almost hadn’t made it to the airport.
The night before the flight did not go as planned. I hadn’t told my parents about the trip. They would’ve tried to stop me from going if they’d found out. I had to wait until they were asleep before I could pack. In the early morning, I’d slip out the back door and meet Harrison at his car down the block. Simple, right?
The problem was that Papi had a bad day. It had started as a good day. I’d come out of my room to find Papi in a suit, headed for the train into the city for some meeting he was excited about. From what I could tell, when he got off the train, there was a message waiting on his phone cancelling the appointment. By the time he turned around and came home, he was ready to pop some pills and disappear into the bedroom. Mami and I had to work extra hard to keep him going. I smuggled the pills out of his room and she took him for a walk.
My escape plan was screwed. I listened quietly from my room, but they didn’t go to sleep until after one in the morning. When I was finally sure they were out, I snuck down to the bathroom in my pajamas to grab my toothbrush and makeup kit. The fact that it was too big to bring on the plane with me gave me the shakes. I flicked a look at the mirror. I didn’t like to look at myself with no makeup on, my freckly skin unprotected from the world. I thought about what Josie said to me in the nurse’s office. They needed me to come with them? She said I was the only one who wasn’t falling apart for the last six months? The only reason I wasn’t falling apart after the crash was that—unlike them—I was already broken in pieces. But I had to pull it together for her. For all of them.
I opened the bottom drawer under the sink where I’d stuffed Papi’s collection of prescription bottles. It had been a while since I’d done this. My brain was telling me not to—that I didn’t need to take pills anymore. I could get through this trip on my own. But that same brain was also racing with bad thoughts of what might happen on the plane: Harrison freaking out, Josie melting down again, Jack getting in another fight.
I caved. I uncapped one of the anti-anxiety meds, placed a pill on my tongue, and stuck my face under the faucet to wash it down. Get a good night’s sleep. Be ready to go in the morning. Like Josie said, they were counting on me. After further review, I realized this might require a stronger dose, so I swallowed two more pills and went out to the yard with my vape pen.
I sat down in a lounge chair and scrolled through my phone as I inhaled. No social media activity from Josie tonight. She’d only posted three pictures in the last month. One was a sketch Archie had drawn of the two of them snuggled on a couch toget
her. They looked happy. Content. The other picture was a selfie Archie took of all five of us at the lunch table. His head took up half the frame, nearly blocking Josie entirely. Harrison was looking in the other direction, Jack was half out of the shot, and I had my eyes closed. I saved the photo to my phone and closed my eyes as the pills eased their way through my system. I let the tension escape from my body.
* * *
I opened my eyes a millimeter. When did it get light out? Mami was standing over me and I was confused as shit. My mouth felt like I’d swallowed a big gulp of sand at the beach. “What time is it?”
“Did you sleep out here?” she asked. I jammed the vape pen into my pocket as I bolted out of the chair. My phone had line after line of increasingly concerned texts from Harrison. He was down the block. We were supposed to leave ten minutes ago. I started running toward the house even as I typed to Harrison.
Shit. B there soon.
Mami called after me as I tore ass into the house. “Cálmate, Daya,” she said. “It’s spring break.”
But I was not relaxed. I was in a full-blown panic. I hadn’t packed or even located my passport. I was still wearing pajamas. I could not miss this flight!
Mami followed me into my room as I yanked clothes from drawers. “Where are you going?”
I had no time to make up an excuse. “I’m going to the airport. We’re flying to Anguilla today.”
“Anguilla? With who?”
“All of us. Josie, Jack, Harrison, Archie. It’s a long story. They want to find out what happened to their parents. Get closure. Whatever. Could you please not ask questions and just help me pack? I have no idea what to bring and Harrison is waiting in the car.”
She grabbed a duffel bag out of my closet. “I’m coming with you.”
“No, you can’t.”
“I should be there. I was supposed to be on that flight the first time. I can help. Please let me help you.”
“How is you being there gonna help Josie? You think she wants to sit on the plane with the woman who was sleeping with her father? What she’s going through right now—it’s hard enough. Please don’t make it worse for her.”
The Year They Fell Page 22