The Other F-Word

by Natasha Friend

  “Merci, Max,” Milo said.

  The manny cocked his chin. “Later,” he said, and sauntered out of the room in his skinny jeans.

  JJ flashed a grin as he slid onto the bench beside Milo. “He’ll be playing Flames of Vengeance until dinner.” Then JJ reached into the chest pocket of his flannel shirt and pulled out a joint.

  “Please tell me that’s not what I think it is,” Milo said.

  “Okay, I won’t.”

  “Frankie will kill me if I come home smelling like weed.”

  “She won’t kill you,” JJ said mildly, rummaging through his jeans for a lighter. “She’ll kill me.”

  “Whatever,” Milo said, waving a hand through the air. “Just smoke in the corner so I don’t reek.”

  “Relax.” JJ got up and walked a few paces to a Formica counter. He reached over the top and came up with an aerosol can. “Spritz yourself with this before you leave.”

  “Bowling shoe deodorizer?”

  “Febreze.” JJ spritzed the air a few times. “Long-lasting freshness.”

  Hollis had been staring in disbelief this whole time, not because she’d never seen a joint before but because JJ didn’t seem like the type. “You’re a pothead?”

  JJ lit up. “I’m not a pothead.”

  “A stoner then.”

  He sucked hard on the joint, held his breath, then let it out slowly. “I wouldn’t paint myself with that brush.” He turned to Milo. “Would you paint me with that brush?”

  “You do smoke a lot of weed, man.”

  JJ shrugged. “I like it.”

  “Numbing,” Hollis said.

  JJ cocked an eyebrow at her. “Excuse me?”

  “Numbing,” she repeated. “N-U-M-B-I-N-G.”

  “I know how to spell.”

  “Numbing is like armor,” Hollis explained. “It keeps you from feeling. Pot, Twinkies, alcohol—they’re all the same thing. After Pam died, my mom started drinking wine.”

  Hollis wasn’t sure how much her mother used to drink or whether she was ever technically an alcoholic. All she remembered was Leigh filling a glass every night in front of the fireplace. She remembered how the wine always seemed to make her mother cry. Drink, cry, drink, cry, drink, cry. And then she remembered the morning when her mother suddenly announced at breakfast, “I’m not going to drink anymore.”

  Hollis was ten. Maybe eleven. It was around the same time when Leigh started attending the Parents Without Partners grief group in the basement of the Congregational church. Every time the group met, Hollis would have to stay with their neighbor, Mrs. Brennigan, whose house smelled like cabbage.

  “I’ve been numbing my feelings with alcohol,” Hollis’s mother announced that morning. “I need to walk through the pain. I need to let grief in the front door.” More feeling, less numbing: this was her mother’s new mantra. From that moment forward—until last night, anyway—Hollis hadn’t seen her touch a drop of alcohol.

  “Who’s Pam?” JJ said.

  Hollis shook her head. “That’s not the point. The point is—”

  “Pam was her mom.”

  Hollis shot Milo a look. “She wasn’t my mom. She was my mother’s partner. We weren’t even biologically related.”

  “I’m not biologically related to my parents,” JJ said, “but I still refer to them as Mom and Dad.”

  “That’s different.”

  “How?”

  “They adopted you.”

  “So?”

  “Pam couldn’t adopt me.”

  “Why not?”

  Hollis felt herself getting agitated. “Because she and my mother weren’t married. Because she had no legal rights. Who the hell cares? She wasn’t my mom and that wasn’t even my point.” Hollis waved her arm in JJ’s direction. “You’re numbing was my point, okay? Jesus!”

  JJ held out the joint. “Want a toke?”

  Hollis stared at him. “No, I do not want a toke.”

  “It’ll make you feel better.”

  Hollis snorted. “Now you sound like a drug dealer.”

  “That’s hurtful,” JJ said. “That hurts me right here.” He patted his heart.

  “No wonder you’re numbing,” Milo said, “with Hollis saying such hurtful things.”

  Hollis rolled her eyes. “Shut up. Let’s bowl.”

  MILO

  Milo got creamed in bowling, which turned out to be a more enjoyable experience than he would have thought. On the subway home, Hollis sat back in her seat, flushed. “That was fun.”

  “I’m so glad my gutter balls amused you.”

  “You were really bad.”

  “Excuse me—” Milo held up his right ring finger for her to appreciate. There was a dent in the nail where the door had slammed into it, and the blood pooling underneath had started to turn purple. “You try bowling lefty.”

  “Excuses, excuses.” Hollis waved her hand dismissively. “If JJ hadn’t kept making me laugh I would have beaten him, too.”

  “I don’t know if he’ll be able to walk in the morning after some of those spin moves. I think he gave himself whiplash.”

  Hollis smirked. “I thought pot made most people sit in awkward silence or … I don’t know … talk about conspiracy theories and alien life forms.”

  “JJ Rabinowitz is not most people.”

  “No, he is not.”

  “He walks to the beat of his own drummer, as they say.”

  “Yes.” Hollis nodded agreeably. “He sure does.”

  “He was right about Pam, though.”

  Hollis narrowed her eyes. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “I’m just saying.”

  “Well … don’t.”

  Milo thought for a minute, trying to decide how to proceed. “Hollis,” he said finally. “Here’s the thing … laws don’t make someone a mom. Neither do genetics. Mothering makes someone a mom.”

  “I know that.”

  “Good.”

  Hollis turned and looked out the window. She was telling him the conversation was over. He got that. But she was only here until tomorrow, which didn’t give them much time to discuss anything. He tried again. “It’s the same for our donor. Genetically, he may be our father, but that doesn’t mean—”

  “Don’t,” Hollis said to the window. “Please. I’m messed up enough about Pam. I don’t need you bringing him into it.”

  “I hear you,” Milo said. “And I respect your feelings. But if we start getting emails from his other kids, and they want—”

  “Milo.” Hollis turned to him, her expression pained. “Shut up.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  “One train wreck at a time.”

  “Got it.”

  They sat in silence for a while, buffered by the random sounds of the subway. The squeal of metal. The thump of music coming from someone’s headphones. Laughter. When the doors opened at Carroll Street, a family stepped on. Tall blond dad, short blond mom, two small blond boys dressed in puffy vests and snow boots. A matched set. It was the kind of sight that always gave Milo a pang in the stomach—that made him look away.

  “Do you regret coming here?” he blurted.

  “No,” Hollis said. “But if you can’t keep your mouth shut for the next fifteen minutes, I will.”

  “Duly noted.”

  * * *

  Most parents would enjoy a break from their children. A chance to relax. A chance to recharge the old batteries. Suzanne could do that no problem. But Frankie? Milo couldn’t imagine it. Whenever he went out somewhere, Frankie’s mind was all, What if Milo accidentally eats a pistachio and goes into anaphylactic shock and drops his EpiPen down a sewer drain before he can stab himself in the leg? It was paranoid thinking, and it drove him crazy. Like now, as he and Hollis walked through the front door and into the kitchen where their moms were sitting. Leigh and Suzanne waved and kept talking, but Frankie stood up immediately. “You’re back,” she said, crushing Milo in a hug, smelling like soap and hair gel.
<
br />   “You told us two thirty,” he said. “It’s two thirty.”

  How old did she think he was? When Milo was in kindergarten, Frankie used to read him this book about a bunny that kept running away. Wherever the bunny went, his mother always showed up. Hiding among flowers, fishing him out of a river, disguising herself as a cloud so she could look out for him. At the time, Milo had found the story comforting. It made him feel safe—but thinking about it now, he felt bad for the bunny. He understood the bunny on a whole new level.

  “How was bowling?” Frankie said. Milo could tell she was doing a sniff test, but she must not have smelled JJ’s weed because she stepped back and squeezed his shoulder.

  We drank grain alcohol with peanut butter chasers, Milo was tempted to say but didn’t. “Fun,” he said.

  “I kicked his butt,” Hollis said.

  “Woot woot!” Hollis’s mother gave a cheer, lifting both hands to the ceiling.

  Hollis stared at her. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m raising the roof.”

  “Why?”

  “Isn’t that what you kids do? To celebrate?”

  Suzanne nodded. “That’s what they do.”

  “When have I ever raised the roof?” Milo said.

  “What is this,” Hollis said, “1990?”

  Suzanne sighed. “Look at them, Leigh, united in their mutual disdain for us. Just like brother and sister.”

  It was the first time Milo had seen Hollis’s mom smile. She had the same crooked eyeteeth as Hollis. Which was weird, because at JJ’s house, JJ had pointed out that Milo and Hollis both smiled to the left.

  Hollis wasn’t smiling now, though. She was rolling her eyes. Watching her expressions change was like watching a real-time weather map on TV. At JJ’s: mostly sunny. On the ride home: partly cloudy with a low-pressure system moving in from the south. Sometimes, when Milo looked at Hollis, he felt a flash of recognition. He thought he saw something familiar, but then he would wonder, was it real or was it just because he knew they shared DNA?

  “What?” Hollis said to Milo.

  “Nothing.”

  “Do I have something on my face?”

  “Yeah,” Milo said. “A nose.”

  “Hardy har har.”

  “They have the same nose.” Suzanne squinted across the table. She lowered her glasses from their perch on top of her head. “Don’t they have the same nose?”

  “They do,” Leigh said. “And the same jawline.”

  Milo groaned inwardly. No good would come of this conversation. He looked over at Frankie, who had begun to scrub furiously at the counter with a dishrag, seeing spots no one else could see.

  “So, Ma,” he said. “What’s the plan for the rest of the day?”

  “Well,” Frankie said, looking up from the counter with a smile that was clearly pasted on. “I was thinking about the Museum of Natural History.”

  “Really?” Milo had been to the Museum of Natural History probably a hundred times. They were members. He could lead the way blindfolded.

  “Leigh and Hollis have never been there,” Frankie said defensively. “I thought they might enjoy it.”

  “I’m sure we’ll love it,” Leigh said.

  And Suzanne said, “It really is amazing.”

  Milo backpedaled. “Sounds good.” Then, turning to Hollis, “Sister?”

  Hollis smirked, conveying half-sibling telepathy. “I’ve never met a pterodactyl I didn’t like.”

  * * *

  Milo, Hollis, Suzanne, Frankie, and Leigh wandered the Hall of Human Origins. They saw the mural of primate evolution and Lucy, the first hominid skeleton. They saw the Peking Man, the Neanderthals, and the Cro-Magnons. They did not discuss the emerging field of genomics. They did not reflect on the origin or evolution of their particular hominid family. They did not address the mastodon in the living room because no one wanted to wake the mastodon. Milo and Hollis kept their mouths shut, but they were edgy and amped and waiting for potentially life-altering emails that might or might not come, and they hadn’t even told their mothers about their post.

  The sperm donor kids in the Hall of Human Origins. It was an SNL skit, a mockumentary, a joke waiting for a punch line. Every so often, Milo slid his phone out of his pocket and casually checked his mail.

  “Anything?” Hollis said.

  “Not yet.”

  * * *

  Taco Pacifico was packed, as it always was on Saturday nights. The general din of conversation was accompanied by the mariachi band playing on the other side of the room.

  “I can never decide,” Suzanne was saying, “between the chimichangas and the enchiladas…”

  “You can’t go wrong with the chimichangas,” Frankie said.

  Milo didn’t hear the ping of a new email, but since he’d set his phone to vibrate, he felt a buzz against his belly.

  “I’m a fajita girl myself,” Leigh said.

  At least, Milo assumed it was Leigh. He couldn’t actually see her lips move because he was pretending to read his menu while simultaneously sliding his phone out of his sweatshirt pocket. No devices at the table. This was one of Frankie’s cardinal rules. Right up there with ten o’clock bedtime and no TV during the week.

  “What about you, Holl?”

  Under the table, Milo opened Mail.

  “I don’t know. Steak tacos, probably.”

  49fef37429120a0b3@reply.DonorProgenyProject.org

  Re: Post

  It was staring right at him, the ghost-mail address, the reply to their post, so … undeniable. It was like seeing Hayley Christenson enter a room, a sudden swarm of bees filling his chest. Milo turned to Hollis, who was plunging a tortilla chip into a bowl of salsa. “Look at this,” he murmured.

  “What?”

  He poked her leg with his phone.

  Hollis looked down. “Is that—”

  “Yup.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “I know.”

  “Open it,” she whispered.

  Milo tapped the subject line. And bam.

  From: 49fef37429120a0b3@reply.DonorProgenyProject.org

  To: MiloRobClark@brooklynIDS.org

  Date: Saturday, January 2, at 6:23 PM

  Subject: Re: Post

  Dear Milo and Hollis,

  I think my heart literally stopped beating when my parents showed me your email. They’ve been members of the Donor Progeny Project since I was born but have never been contacted until today. The irony is that they were going to let me start searching myself on my 16th birthday, which happens to be next month, but when your post got routed to my mom’s Gmail, they showed it to me right away. I think I’ve spent the last three hours trying not to pass out. (In a good way!)

  My name is Abby Fenn and I was conceived with donor sperm from the Twin Cities Cryolab. My Donor # was also 9677.

  Milo and Hollis were so caught up in reading that they didn’t hear the waitress, who had arrived to take their order, or Suzanne, who was practically shouting to be heard from across the table.

  “Milo!”

  He looked up. “What?”

  Suzanne gestured to the waitress, who was looking at him expectantly.

  “Oh. Sorry.” Milo ordered what he always ordered: vegetable fajitas with rice-flour tortillas, from the gluten-free, nut-free section of the menu.

  “Tell Alejandra that this order is for Milo Robinson-Clark,” Frankie instructed. “She uses a special pan.”

  “Got it,” the waitress said.

  “It is very, very important that his food be cooked separately, due to his severe food allergies.”

  “I understand.” The waitress paused, making a note on her pad.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Milo could see that Hollis was still hunched over, reading the email.

  “And for you?”

  Still reading.

  “Holl?” Leigh said. “Honey?”

  Milo nudged Hollis in the ribs and her head snapped up. “Okay! So apparently Milo and I ha
ve a sister and her name is Abby.” The moms stared across the table. Hollis held up Milo’s phone. “She lives in Sheboygan, Wisconsin.”

  “Could you repeat that, please?” Frankie said, a tortilla chip dangling limply from her hand.

  “Which part?”

  “Everything.”

  “We found our sister. Her name is Abby Fenn. She lives in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. And oh—” Hollis turned to the waitress. “I’ll have the steak tacos.”

  “She’ll have the steak tacos,” Milo repeated, and he didn’t know why, maybe it was a tension release, but he started to laugh. And once he started he couldn’t stop. The waitress left, looking confused, and Hollis and the three moms just sat there, watching him, waiting for him to finish.

  “Milo,” Frankie said, when he finally stopped snorting long enough to take a sip of water, “you are my son, and no matter what happens … no matter how many people you find who share your DNA … that will never change. I need you to know that. Because your mother and I…” Her voice cracked, but she kept going. “We’re the ones who brought you home from the hospital. We’re the ones who wrapped you in that little yellow blanket. Remember, Suz? The one with the ducks?”

  “I remember,” Suzanne said, squeezing Frankie’s forearm.

  “I still have that blanket,” Frankie said fiercely. “I will always have that blanket. Do you understand what I’m saying?” She looked at Milo.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “You are my boy.”

  “I know.”

  “I am your mom.”

  “I know, Ma.”

  “Do you?”

  Milo started to speak when Suzanne suddenly brought both pinkies to her mouth and gave an ear-piercing whistle.

  “Mom, don’t—” Milo said, but she was already on her feet, flagging down the mariachi band. This was a classic Suzanne Robinson move. Imbuing the moment with a theme song, so that Milo would forever associate finding his new half sister with four men in sombreros singing “La Bamba.”

  “A toast,” Suzanne said brightly, lifting her margarita in the air. “To Abby from Sheboygan, Wisconsin. May she be as brilliant and beautiful and open-minded as Milo and Hollis.”

  “Hear, hear,” Leigh said, raising her water glass.

  Frankie still looked shell-shocked, but she raised her glass anyway, and so did Milo and Hollis, and everyone clinked, and then Suzanne announced that she only knew one other person from Sheboygan, Wisconsin—Brett Lemmon—and he was a real jackass. And the conversation suddenly veered from half siblings to jackasses, with all of them telling their best jackass stories and laughing. And to the mariachi band—the four mustachioed gentlemen with their vihuelas and maracas—they probably looked just like a regular family.