by Paula Garner
Meanwhile, Luke and I talked at any and every opportunity. Daniel’s old bedroom had become my private phone haven, where I’d sit in the dark with the door closed and smile at the sweetness of Luke’s soft voice, thrill at the sound of his laugh.
After, I’d lie awake, replaying the call. And letting my mind go where it went. It turned out that a mind can go in a lot of directions, some of which required firm redirection. My feelings for Luke were confusing. It felt . . . well, it felt a lot like falling in love. But it couldn’t be that. I couldn’t let it be. I didn’t want to fuck things up. I wanted Luke for the long haul. And he, clearly, wanted a sister.
Gab and Leila and I all slept at Gab’s the night before my “family reunion,” watching a screwball comedy with her parents and eating junk food. It was like old times. Fun. Easy. It was good. Gab and Leila seemed to roll back together so easily after their disagreements. Despite their disagreements. Sometimes during their disagreements. Such was the non-negotiable quality of their relationship. Proton and neutron.
In the morning, the three of us headed for Milwaukee. Despite the gray sky, the mood was warm, and their ceaseless chatter was a distraction and a deep comfort. They sat in the front seat, talking about basketball, laughing and mocking themselves and their bad plays in the last game of the season. And as I sat there in the back, watching their perfect, laughing faces — as familiar to me as my own name — a feeling of boundless love swelled up in me. They were the constants in my life, the sun I faithfully orbited. I wanted it always to be that way.
When they pulled up in front of the designated Starbucks, Leila got out and hugged me, saying, “Call me if you need me. I’ll glue my phone to my face.”
Gab ran around to join us, wrapping her arms around for a group hug.
Luke came out of the Starbucks and bounded toward us. He wore khakis and a T-shirt with an unbuttoned blue plaid shirt, no jacket. When he reached us, he hugged me tight. He was charming and friendly to Gab and Leila, thanking them for bringing me. After promising them to take good care of me, he gave them a wave and took my overnight bag to his car, parked farther up the street. As we reached it, the rain started.
“Mom is beside herself!” he said, holding the door open for me.
Mom. Not my mom. Did he still see her as my mom, too? I climbed into the car and buckled up.
He got in and closed the door. “She couldn’t sleep last night. She’s so excited.”
“I’m worried I’ll disappoint her by not remembering her.” I was hit with the smell of his freshly shampooed hair, which was so intoxicating that I wanted to press my nose to his head. I wondered if I’d think he smelled so good if I grew up with him? Would we find each other annoying and overly familiar sometimes, like regular siblings?
“She knows you were too little to remember. Don’t worry. She’s just happy to see you again.” He smiled, rolling his eyes. “Well. More like ecstatic.” He turned on the windshield wipers and pulled into the street. “I hope she’s ready for us. She used to be more casual about things, but it takes her longer to get ready now.”
I wondered if she had to fuss with a wig, use extra makeup to keep from looking so sick. I tried to push aside the thought. I was so anxious, my knees bobbed up and down. “So what do you think we’ll do?”
He slowed for a light. “Eat lunch . . . look at pictures of you . . . watch videos of you. . . . She’ll probably have twenty thousand questions.” He frowned a little. “We just never know how much energy she’ll have. She wants to have dinner at home, too, but she might need to rest. I told her we should just order pizza, or you and I could go out, if she isn’t feeling well.”
My heart leapt at the idea of going out alone with Luke — followed by a terrible stab of guilt that this was my first thought, rather than hoping Mima would be well enough for the evening. I was having a hard time dividing up the real estate in my heart and mind between wanting to know my foster family and wanting more time alone with Luke.
The rain grew heavier. It was oddly calming, the rhythmic slap of the wipers on the window, Luke’s sure handling of the car, his relaxed, leaned-back posture. When I drove, I sat bolt upright, as if good posture would protect me from harm.
We had bursts of conversation punctuated by silence. I thought about things like whether or not I would pretend to remember things I didn’t, if out of compassion for his mother and/or my own personal longing, I would feign a sense of connection I didn’t feel. I imagined Luke was thinking about his mother. His love for her was plain. The idea of losing her must have been completely unbearable.
Off the main roads, we wended our way through a neighborhood of older homes. Finally Luke slowed and turned into a driveway, taking a breath and glancing at me, eyebrows raised in a this is it look.
“Wait,” I said as he reached for the car door handle.
He paused and turned back to me. “You okay?”
I had thought of so many questions, but they darted in and out of my mind like bats. “Did you guys have a nickname for me?”
He tilted his head, thinking. “We had a lot of nicknames for you. Dad used to call you his ‘little Jujube.’”
I turned it over in my head. Jujube, Jujube. I tried to find it in the recesses of my memory, but the word felt as fresh as a spring breeze.
“I remember Mom calling you pet names, like ‘sweet cheeks’ and ‘sugar pie.’”
God. She was like the antithesis of my mom, who never called me anything but Jules. Maybe an occasional “honey,” but not usually even that.
I stared at the house. It was large — a Tudor, judging by the decorative dark timber over white and the diamond-patterned leaded-glass windows. Nineteen twenties, I would guess. The kind of house I loved.
“Do your recognize it?” Luke’s voice was soft, but I felt the urgency.
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe you’ll recognize it inside. After all, that’s where you spent most of your time.”
We got out of the car, and he grabbed my bag. I ducked my head against the rain, although it was barely a drizzle now. We headed up the walkway, past the neatly trimmed hedges, to the front entry. A mezuzah on the door frame caught my eye. Gab’s family had one, too. The Wassermans’ was silver and almost filigree in design. This one was gold with Hebrew letters and jeweled inlay.
A feeling of something like reverence came over me, but there was more to it than that. This was a Jewish home. And it might have been my home — my identity, even. The alternate universe continued to unspool its endless possible trajectories.
Luke pushed open the heavy oak door and called out, “Hello? We’re here!”
He ushered me into the foyer, and I glanced around, taking the place in.
It was a beautiful home — elegant, but comfortable. Dark, gleaming woodwork. Oriental rugs over warm wood floors. A crystal chandelier in the foyer, a carved banister leading up the stairs. The kind of house I fantasized about living in. It occurred to me that these longings perhaps were not just random fantasies. Instead, maybe they were echoes of memories — a yearning for something left behind.
Footsteps. A tall, white-haired man walked down the hall toward us, a look of anticipation on his kind face.
“Hey, Dad,” Luke said, smiling and turning toward me. “Here she is. This is Jules!”
I smiled at him, suddenly overwhelmed with shyness, and at a loss about how to greet him. If he was once my adoring father, a handshake seemed cold. But he felt like a stranger to me.
He stood in front of me, beaming. He didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands, either. I was aware of Luke standing by, holding his breath.
“Hi,” I finally said, reaching out my arms.
He pulled me into a hug, and when he stepped back, his face was a mix of emotions. “I can’t believe it . . . seems like just yesterday you were here, such a little thing . . .” He shook his head.
A voice called from another room. “Ted? Are they here?”
“We’re
coming, honey,” he called back.
Luke hung up our coats, and we followed his dad into the house, Luke’s hand warm and reassuring on my back.
We stepped into a huge kitchen, and in a windowed breakfast nook, there she sat. Mima. Her bony hand fluttered to her mouth, almost smothering the small noise she made when she saw me.
Luke guided me to her.
The emotion on her face made me weak. And in that moment, everything changed. In that moment, I knew that all these unreal things that had unfolded were incomprehensibly real.
It was clear how much I meant to this woman. Her hands trembled and her eyes spilled over as she reached out to me.
I leaned down and hugged her.
She was so slight, she was barely there. She shook as I held her.
Luke’s dad reached out and touched her arm. “Take it easy, Sarah,” he said quietly.
After a moment, she pulled back, taking my face in both her hands.
“Look at you,” she whispered. “I’d know you anywhere.” She smiled even as tears streamed down her cheeks. “Those big brown eyes. Those cupid’s bow lips. You’re just beautiful. You were always beautiful.”
I smiled at her, wondering if she’d ever seem familiar to me. I hoped more than anything that she would. “Thank you,” I said. “Thank you for . . . taking care of me.”
Luke’s dad pressed a tissue into her hand, and she dabbed her eyes. Then she glanced up at Luke, smiling. Thanking him with her eyes. She took a breath and gestured at the table. “Sit! I can’t wait to hear all about you.”
“Sure. Um.” I glanced at Luke. “Could I just use the bathroom first?”
He directed me to the powder room in the hall, and once inside I closed the door and leaned against it.
This was hard. Harder than I expected.
I used the toilet and washed my hands, examining the details of the powder room. I probably wasn’t even toilet-trained when I left, so it made sense that this room didn’t spark any memories. I wondered what would, if anything.
I gazed into the mirror, trying to see myself as she did. The color of my eyes, the shape of my mouth. What else did she remember about me? She knew me when my own mother didn’t. She heard my first words. Saw my first steps. Changed untold hundreds of diapers. Fed me. Made me safe. Loved me.
I took a breath. She had said she wanted to hear all about me, but what could I tell her? They were clearly sophisticated, educated people — what could I even talk to them about? I was petrified of disappointing them with my bland mediocrity.
When I went back to the kitchen, the table was set and Luke and his dad were ferrying dishes from the counter to the breakfast nook.
“Something smells good,” I said, moving toward them. A savory, buttery smell mingled with the aroma of coffee. “Can I help?”
“No, no, just come sit next to me,” Mima said, patting the seat next to her. “There’s nothing to do. I just made a quiche and some muffins and a fruit salad. I hope that’s okay. Luke said you still eat everything.”
I felt my cheeks color as I sat beside her. “Accurate,” I admitted.
She smiled at me, which made her whole face look younger, more alive. She wasn’t wearing a wig. Her hair was very fine, though. Thin, and on the short side. A mix of brown and light gray. “I loved that about you,” she said, patting my knee. “Luke was so picky when he was little. But not you. You were such a good eater.”
“That’s an understatement,” Luke said, pulling plastic wrap off a ceramic bowl of mixed fruit. He glanced up and gave me a wink.
“When we first got you,” Mima said, taking my hand in hers, “you were on formula, but you had trouble keeping it down. You were just tiny. But when we started you on solids, oh, boy . . .” She smiled, shaking her head. “Everything turned around. You loved to eat — you liked everything.”
“Except peas,” Luke’s dad said, cutting the quiche into slices.
They all laughed.
“We have footage of that.” Luke smiled at me as he sat down. “You have to see it. You were scraping the peas off your tongue!”
“And such a terrible face she made!” Mima laughed.
I was fascinated — it was hard to get my arms around the fact that they were talking about me.
Luke’s dad handed me a plate with a slice of quiche on it and passed me the bowl of fruit. The coffee maker beeped, and he got up. “Coffee, Jules?”
“Uh, sure. Thank you.” It wasn’t going to help my nerves, but I wanted to have coffee with everyone.
When he brought over a cup for me, I asked him shyly, “What should I call you?”
He paused, then looked at his wife.
“You used to call him Buddy,” she told me.
I nodded and glanced at him. “Would that be okay? If I call you Buddy?”
He swallowed, his Adam’s apple sliding up and then down. “Buddy’s great,” he said softly.
As we ate, everyone regaled me with stories about myself. More coffee was made, juice was poured, the quiche — crab, goat cheese, and scallion — was demolished, although I was too nervous to have seconds, and I noticed that Mima didn’t eat a bite. Twice Luke prompted her quietly to eat, but she waved him off. At some point during the meal, I don’t know when, someone put a container of Ensure in front of her.
When we finished eating, Mima asked if I’d like to see my baby videos, which of course I very desperately wanted to do.
But first, I helped clean up, despite protests. I felt a need to be useful, to demonstrate that I’d turned out well. As I rinsed dishes, Mima pushed herself up to her feet. Luke’s dad — Buddy — rushed over.
“What do you need, Sarah? For Pete’s sake, just ask!”
She swatted at him. “I can get up. I want to show Jules something.” She gestured toward the cabinets. “Let me do it,” she said, moving slowly past him.
Her gait was stilted, careful. I recalled the picture I’d seen of her, from before she was sick. She had been so beautiful. She still was, in a fast-fading sort of way. How long did she have? What were her odds? Imagining she might be dead in a few months gnawed a hole inside me.
She held on to the counter with one hand and opened an upper cabinet. Buddy stood behind her, on alert. I could tell that it was hard for him to stand by and watch her struggle. But she turned around, triumphant, and held something out to me.
“Do you remember this?” she said, smiling. “It was your favorite sippy cup!”
I wiped my hands on a towel and took it from her.
“Buzz Lightyear,” I said, staring at it.
Buddy chuckled. “Only back then you pronounced it Buth White-year.”
“White-mear,” Luke corrected.
“Buth White-mear,” I repeated.
It was quiet for a moment as everyone watched me.
“Do you remember it?” Mima finally asked.
“Mom,” Luke said softly. “She’ll tell us if she remembers something.”
She nodded, glancing at me apologetically. “It’s just — it was the only cup you would drink out of.”
I turned it over in my hands. The more I looked at it, the more unsure I was if it was familiar or if it was just my imagination, just wishful thinking.
Also, I couldn’t help thinking of my mother, who would have tossed something like this out long ago. Raised in this family, I would probably have had keepsakes galore.
I would have liked that a lot.
I handed the cup back to Mima with a smile I hoped didn’t look too sad. “Thank you for keeping it,” I said. “It means a lot to me.”
“Of course,” she said. “Our memories of you are so wonderful, Jules. You’ll see.”
And so we migrated into the adjacent family room, which had a wall of windows that displayed the continuing rain outside. It looked like something from a painting, the periwinkle and slate of the sky through all the tall trees in the backyard. It made me think of my mother, and I wondered whether she was painting. And fucking up th
e sky.
A gleaming grand piano held court in the family room. A large leather sectional faced the fireplace, a flat-screen TV mounted above. Displayed on a gorgeous weathered sideboard were framed photos of Luke, throughout childhood. He was adorable. My hand went to my heart when I spotted myself in one of them. I sat in the bathtub, pouring water out of a cup, and Luke knelt on the floor near the tub, grinning at the camera. My first thought was, They displayed a picture of me! Followed quickly by: He’s seen me naked — a thought that was actually sort of jarring, for some reason. Had I seen him naked, too?
I sank into the leather couch next to Mima, and Buddy propped throw pillows behind her until she was comfortable. Luke flipped through discs, setting up for viewing the home movies.
I took a shaky breath at the thought of seeing myself at that age for the first time — it might be like falling into a wormhole to that alternate universe. In a way, that’s just what it was: a universe where I was a member of this family, where, if my mother hadn’t emerged victorious over addiction, this would be my home, my mom, my dad, my brother. I’d go to high school here. I might think of myself as Jewish. I never would have met Gab or Leila. And I would never have known anyone who looked just like me, the way my mom did.
Would I be fatter? Skinnier? More confident? Better-educated? Or would I feel like a rejected throwaway living off the fat of charity? Leila fit so well into her family. . . . Maybe I would have, too? But Leila and her brother were both adopted; in my case, I would have been the only unrelated one. Maybe that would have been hard. Or maybe it wouldn’t have. Maybe the kind of love these people would have given me would have mitigated a mountain of potential psychological or emotional issues.
Suddenly Luke was settling in next to me on the couch, close enough that his arm touched mine. I was glad for his warmth. Did he intuit what this might be like for me? I felt barely tethered, and his closeness was an anchor. I was intermittently aware of Mima narrating . . . “This was the day we got you — we’d only had a day’s notice! Look at that expression! You’re so gorgeous, but you have the most skeptical look on your face! Don’t you think? Well, who could blame you. Poor thing . . .”