by Gene Gant
There was a long series of texts from Kerry, a guy I knew from school. He lived about two miles away, but we still hung out from time to time. His texts started out trying to get me to meet him at the Cineplex to catch the new Avengers movie. When he got no response, he texted that he was going to the movie without me. After the movie he texted again and again, and of course he still got no response. His last text, sent just six minutes ago, really showed his frustration: R U DEAD OR WHAT?
I sent a message to let Kerry know I’d just gotten my phone back. As if on cue, Mom spoke up behind me. “Zavier, I’m starting to think that cell phone is a part of your hand.”
“Come on, Mom. I haven’t had it for hours. I’m just trying to get caught up on my text messages.”
She walked into the room and stood in front of me. Gently, she reached out, took me by the chin, and lifted my face away from the phone screen. “What about your reading and vocabulary lists? Are you trying to get caught up on those?”
“I’m halfway through the vocabulary words.”
“That’s good. Where are you on the reading list?”
“Uh….”
“So you haven’t read even one of the books yet, is that it?”
“I’m gonna get to them, Mom.”
“When, Zavier? You always put things off. This is almost the end of June. In three weeks, we’re going to be on vacation in Orlando. Do you really want to spend that time sitting in a hotel room catching up on your summer reading while your dad and I are out having all the fun?”
“Wow. You didn’t have to go all nuclear on me. Okay, Mom. I’ll start reading a book after dinner. I promise.”
She smiled, leaned down, and kissed my forehead. “That’s what I wanted to hear. Come on and set the table. Dinner’s ready.”
“Just let me text my friend back and I’ll be right there.”
Mom returned to the kitchen, and I checked out the text Kerry had just sent demanding to know how I’d gotten deprived of my phone. For a couple of minutes, we texted on that subject. Finally I let him know that I had to go and that I’d have to catch up with him later. Just as I sent that message, someone knocked at the front door.
I raised my head. Through the glass in the door, I could see a woman with short pale-blonde hair peering in at me. She waved, smiling. “Hi there,” she said, her voice muffled by the glass and wood.
I went to the door and opened it. The woman was slender, not as tall as my mom but just as pretty. She wore dark blue pants and a white blouse and a blue cotton blazer. Her smile brightened a little now that we stood face-to-face. She seemed friendly enough until she pulled out a badge and held it up in front of me. “Hello. Is this the Beckham residence?”
“Yes, ma’am.” A shiver went through my chest into my stomach.
“Are your parents at home?”
Before I could answer her, Dad called out, “Is someone at the door?”
“Yeah,” I called back. “It’s the police.”
There was sort of a giant pause, as if the whole house held its breath for a second. The lady cop and I stood looking at each other, which got major awkward really fast. Then Mom and Dad came into the living room at the same time. I glanced back at them. They both looked puzzled at first, but they quickly broke out with smiles.
“Zavier, don’t keep her standing out there,” Mom chided. “Let her in.”
I stepped aside, and the lady cop walked in. She extended her hand, shaking first with Mom and then with Dad. “Hello,” she said. “You’re Charles and Rudi Beckham?”
“That’s us,” Dad replied. “How can we help you, Officer?”
“I’m not a police officer,” the woman said, holding out her badge to them. “My name is Audra Henley. I’m an agent with the FBI.”
There was just a glimmer of worry in Mom’s eyes. “Well, my goodness. Why’re you here, Agent Henley?”
“I’d like to talk with you and your husband, Mrs. Beckham.” The woman started to say something else but stopped and flicked a look at me.
Mom and Dad looked at me too.
“Hey, kid,” Dad said. “Why don’t you go on out to the kitchen and get the table set? Then I want you to wait there for your mom and me. We’ll be in as soon as we finish talking with Agent Henley.”
“Okay, Dad.” I usually did what I was told. Something about this whole situation had me nervous, however. I walked out of the living room but didn’t go to the kitchen. I let the louvered door swing shut after I stepped into the hall and then quietly pressed my back against the wall. That kept me close enough to the living room to hear everything going on in there.
“Please have a seat, Agent Henley,” Mom said. Rustling sounds followed as the three of them sat down. “Now, tell us what brings you around.”
Agent Henley cleared her throat. “I’m here about your son.”
Chapter Three
MY THROAT closed up. It’s scary to have an FBI agent show up at your home and tell your parents she’s there to talk about you.
It wasn’t like I’d done something wrong. I knew I hadn’t broken the law or anything, but I still felt a little zing of fear go skittering down my spine. Why in the world would the FBI be interested in me? Instinctively, I leaned closer to the door, even though I could hear the conversation just fine.
“Zavier?” Mom and Dad responded together, as if they had more than one son.
“Yes,” said Agent Henley. “I have a few questions I’d like to ask you. And let me say in advance that I’m sorry, but this won’t be easy.”
“Well, now you’re really worrying me,” Mom said.
That definitely made two of us.
Agent Henley cleared her throat again. “You adopted Zavier when he was six months old, is that correct?”
Wait.
Adopted.
Adopted?
I expected one of my parents to tell this FBI woman she had the wrong information, that she had the Beckhams mixed up with some other family, or that she was just plain crazy in the head. Any one of those responses would have made complete sense to me because they fit neatly with the world I’d known all my life. The last thing I expected was a long, tense pause, broken finally with Dad saying to the agent in a very quiet voice, “Yes, that’s right.”
No.
That wasn’t right. No way could that be right.
Suddenly I couldn’t breathe. It was like I’d been punched in the chest or something, and I almost slid down to the floor. I shook my head, refusing to believe what Dad had just said. I’d misunderstood his words; that had to be it. Then I felt the pain, a steady squeeze deep in my chest.
No.
No!
“And you made the adoption through the Clinefeld Agency?” Agent Henley continued.
“Yes,” Mom answered impatiently, “but what does this have to do with anything?”
“That agency’s records show that the birth mother signed away her rights and provided a death certificate for the birth father,” said the FBI woman.
“We’re aware of all that,” Dad confirmed.
“I’d like for you to look at this picture.”
There was more rustling, followed by a long stretch of silence.
“That’s Zavier as a baby,” Mom said at last. “But I’ve never seen this picture before. Where did you get it?”
“It was provided to the authorities as part of a missing person report.”
Now I was totally confused. I frowned. None of this made any sense.
In the living room, Mom gasped.
“Wait,” Dad said, his voice hushed. “Are you saying… are you saying our son was kidnapped?”
“Yes, Mr. Beckham. He was. Those documents at the Clinefeld Agency are forgeries. Both of Zavier’s birth parents are alive, and they’ve been looking for him for a very long—”
Something went off in my head, a bomb. It blew open the door, and I went charging into the living room, right up to that FBI woman. “You’re lying!” I screamed at her. “Ev
erything you said is a lie, and you’d better stop saying it!”
The woman didn’t flinch or anything. She got this really sympathetic look on her face. “Zavier, I think maybe you should let your parents finish talking with me, and then they can speak with you—”
“No!” I shouted. “You stop talking! You stop talking to them! You’re a damn liar!”
I felt Dad behind me suddenly, his hands grabbing my shoulders. “Zavier, son, stop it. Come here.” He tried to pull me into his arms. I tore away from him.
I only vaguely remember running down the hall to my room and slamming the door behind me.
I HUDDLED in the little space between the wall and my desk, knees drawn up to my chest, arms wrapped around my shins. When I was smaller—five, maybe six years old—that was my hiding place when I got scared. I’d pull the quilt off the bed and cover myself, and that had always made me feel safe.
Nothing could make me feel safe now.
I stayed in my room as the daylight grew dimmer with the setting of the sun. During that while, the quiet drone of voices in the living room went on and on. I couldn’t make out any of the words, but that was okay by me. I didn’t want to know what they were saying anymore.
I wanted to scream.
I wanted to break things.
MY ROOM had gotten pretty dark when the knock came. “Zavier?”
It was Mom’s voice. I didn’t move or answer her.
The door opened slowly and she came in, followed by Dad. She flipped the wall switch, filling the room with light. Her eyes looked so sad. Dad’s mouth was pulled in tight, and his jaw worked hard, as if he were trying to bite a nail in two. Mom walked over and sat on the bed near me. Dad stayed by the door.
“Is that FBI lady still here?” I asked.
“She just left,” Mom said.
“What she said about me… is it true? Am I adopted?”
Mom looked me right in the eye and nodded. “Yes.”
I felt that crushing pain in my chest again. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“We were going to. The plan was to tell you when you turned thirteen. We thought you’d be old enough to handle the information by then. You turned thirteen and somehow your dad and I let it get pushed to the back burner again. I’m sorry. This doesn’t change how your dad and I feel. We love you no matter what.”
I didn’t know what to say after that. Mom and Dad didn’t seem to know what to say either. Dad wouldn’t even look at me. He was staring at the wall over my bed as if he wanted his gaze to burn a hole in it. Everything felt wrong somehow. Being in my room now, in my home with my parents… it seemed awkward and empty. I kept thinking this was how it would feel if the walls and the roof and the furniture—all the things that made our house familiar and comfortable and secure—had been ripped away.
And it was because of her.
“Why’d that lady come here?” My voice sounded strange and broken.
Mom sighed. “She was just doing her job. Zavier, there’s something you have to understand. Your father and I didn’t know it, but you have… another set of parents, your biological parents, who—”
“They can’t just take him,” Dad snapped furiously at Mom. His eyes were locked on her as if I had disappeared from the room. The blaze in those eyes wasn’t just anger; it was also fear. “Zavier’s been our son for almost fourteen years, and the FBI can’t just waltz in here and expect to take him away from us!”
Mom turned to him at once. “Charles, I can’t have you in here upset right now. Step outside, take a walk around the block, and let me talk to Zavier.”
Dad put a hand over his mouth. His eyes shifted wildly, and then he hurried out of the room. Seconds later, I heard the front door slam. I’d never seen him afraid before, and that scared me even more, but not nearly as much as what he’d said.
I could feel myself shaking. “Mom… what did Dad mean? What’s happening?”
She held out a hand to me. “Come here, sweetheart.”
I got up and sat next to her on the bed. She put her arms around me and pulled me close.
“When your father and I got married, one of our biggest dreams was to bring a child into our family. We found out later that we weren’t able to have children, so we went to an adoption agency where we got you, a baby who needed us the same way we needed a baby. You know how very much we love you, and nothing will ever change that.”
“Yeah, I know, Mom.”
“Good.” She squeezed my shoulder. “Now, at the time of the adoption, there was a birth certificate for you listing the names of your natural mother and father. There was also a statement signed by your mother giving up her parental rights, and there was another certificate showing that your natural father had died. Those documents made it possible for your father and me to adopt you. But today, we found out those documents are fakes.”
“So what does that mean? Is the adoption fake too? Do you have to do it over again or something?”
Mom shook her head. “Things are a little more complicated than that. The woman who signed that statement and turned you over for adoption was not your natural mother.”
“Who was she, then?”
“The FBI doesn’t know. Agent Henley said they are doing everything they can to track her down. They believe she stole you away from your real parents so she could collect money from the adoption agency. At that time, the agency paid big sums of money to a mother who signed over her child, supposedly to reimburse her for medical expenses and such. Agencies like that are essentially buying babies. But what matters most here is that your real parents called the police when you disappeared. The police and the FBI have searched for you for years.”
“So Agent Henley found me here.”
“Yes. And now that you’ve been found, your natural parents want you back.”
Chapter Four
A BURST of panic took the place of the pain in my chest. I put my hand over my heart and rubbed as if that would steady the wild fluttering inside. “Can they do that? Can those people take me away from you and Dad?”
“I don’t know, Zavier. I honestly don’t know.”
“But… you and Dad… you’re my parents. I don’t want to go away from you.”
“Your father and I don’t want you to go either. We’ll have to hire a lawyer to look into this.”
Crazy. This was all so crazy. How could something like this even be happening? “What if there’s nothing the lawyer can do? What if he can’t stop me from getting taken away—”
Mom held me tighter. “Honey, don’t do that to yourself. Don’t go getting all worked up over what might happen when there’s nothing you can do. Let your dad and me worry about this, okay?”
There was no way I could turn off the frenzy in my head. I got up and started pacing across the room. Mom was a pretty good pianist. She took private lessons as a kid and even studied music in college for a while before changing her major to education. She sometimes gave lessons on weekends using the piano in our living room. Back before I started first grade, when she’d put me down for my afternoon nap, she’d go into the living room and play classical-like stuff on those keys that seemed so mysterious to me. The soft, floating music would make me feel completely safe and carry me gently off into sleep. I wanted to be that little kid again, lying curled in my bed with my mother only a room away, comforted and protected by the wondrous melodies she played.
Mom pulled something from the pocket of her blouse. She held it out toward me. “Agent Henley gave me this.”
I stopped pacing, both curious and apprehensive. “What is it?”
“A picture. It’s a photo of your birth parents. Would you like to take a look?”
The idea was so sickening I backed a step away from her. “No. Why would I want to see them?”
“They look like very nice people.”
“I don’t care,” I said, my voice a lot louder than I meant it to be. “I don’t want to see any picture of those people.”
Mom h
esitated briefly before tucking the photo back in her pocket. “Well, they want to see you.”
“Mom, I really couldn’t care less what they want.”
Mom frowned. “Don’t be that way, Zavier. Your dad and I taught you better than that.”
The tumble of emotions in my head turned into one solid mass of pure anger. I didn’t want to talk about this anymore, didn’t want to even think about it. There was no way I was going to tell Mom to get out of my room, so I went back and stuffed myself into the tight corner between my desk and the wall, folded my hands over my knees, and buried my face behind my arms.
“I’m sorry, Zavier,” Mom said. “I know this is a lot for you to take in. Why don’t you stay here and try to get ahold of yourself? I’ll bring some dinner to you in a bit.”
I heard her get up. She moved slowly across the room, her footsteps soft as whispers. At the door she stopped. “Honey, no matter what, you’re going to be okay. I promise you that.”
“Turn the light off, Mom. Please.”
I heard the click of the switch, and darkness rushed in around me like an ocean wave falling on the shore. Mom stepped out and closed the door.
There were tears somewhere deep inside me, but my anger was so thick they couldn’t get through to my eyes.
DAD WAS a fantastic storyteller. He used to always say that he had a great novel in his head just waiting to be written, and I believed him. Back when I was smaller, like in first and second grade, sometimes I’d have sleepovers with Cole. Dad would make these big tents for us out of blankets and chairs right in the middle of the living room, and Cole and I would put our sleeping bags in there and pretend we were camping out in some barren wilderness. When it was time for us to sleep, Dad would crawl in the tent with us and spin stories.