My So-Called Family

by Courtney Sheinmel

  “Well, we should probably get going,” I said. “My mom doesn’t like it if I keep Charlie out too late. Come on, Char.”

  “You sure?” Avery said. I nodded. Avery held out her hand to Charlie. “Aren’t you going to shake my hand good-bye?”

  “No,” Charlie said. “You’re not a teacher.” He climbed up onto the booth and hugged Avery good-bye.

  “Call me tonight if you want to talk,” Avery said.

  “I will,” I told her, even though I wasn’t actually allowed to use the phone, and even if I were, I wouldn’t call her anyway. I didn’t think she would understand anything about it. Her family wasn’t anything like mine. It was solid and strong. She knew exactly who her father was. She didn’t get grounded for no good reason, and she didn’t have half siblings scattered around the country. There were some things I couldn’t tell anyone else. Except maybe a sibling. Like Samantha. I had her phone number in my desk at home. Technically I wasn’t allowed to use the phone since I was grounded, but I could tell Mom it was for school. I could say I was doing a project with a girl named Samantha and ask for special permission to use the phone. I knew she wouldn’t say no if she thought it was for school. Suddenly I was in a hurry. “Come on, Charlie,” I said.

  It took a while to walk home because Charlie is so slow. Mom met us at the door and told us that she had ordered in again. “Will you be eating with us this time?” she asked me. I hadn’t sat at the table with Mom and Simon all week since I was so mad at them.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I have this project for English. The teacher broke us up into pairs and I’m supposed to work on it with this girl Samantha. I thought I might get started on it. Can I use the phone if it’s for school?”

  “Yes,” Mom said.

  “Thanks,” I said. I started to go upstairs.

  “Leah,” Mom called, and I turned back to look at her. “I think you’ve learned your lesson, don’t you?” I nodded. “That’s what I thought,” Mom said. “I think you’ve been grounded long enough. Thanks for helping with Charlie.”

  “No problem,” I said, and I headed the rest of the way up the stairs.

  chapter eight

  I knew calling Samantha was a long distance phone call because I had to dial a different area code. I was pretty sure that meant the call was more expensive, and I decided not to think about what Mom and Simon would do when they got the phone bill. I just picked up the phone.

  I tried calling Samantha twice on Friday night and again on Saturday, but I didn’t get to speak to her until Sunday. By then I had memorized her phone number, and I was used to he way the answering machine at her house sounded when it picked up on the other end. It was a woman’s voice: “You have reached the Holland residence. Please leave a message for Anna or Samantha at the tone.” My hands had been pretty sweaty the first few times I called, but by Sunday I was starting to expect that no one would be home. I was lying on my bed counting the rings. The answering machine always picked up after four rings. But this time, halfway through the second ring, a woman said “Hello?” I clutched the phone with both hands and sat up. “Hello?” the woman said again.

  “Um, is Samantha there?” I asked. I knew my voice sounded strange, not at all like my regular voice, but since the woman had never heard my regular voice before, she couldn’t tell that it was coming out differently.

  “Just a sec,” the woman said. I recognized her voice from the answering machine. She was probably Anna. Anna, who had gone to Lyon’s Reproductive Services and picked out Donor 730, just like my mom had. I wondered what she looked like. Sometimes you can get an idea of what someone looks like by the way they sound, but I couldn’t picture Anna at all in my head. I heard muffled voices through the phone, and then footsteps. My hands had started sweating again. I could feel the phone getting slippery.

  “Hello?” a voice said. It was a younger voice this time, like around my age.

  “Is this Samantha?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Who’s this?”

  “My name is Leah,” I said. “I got your number off the Lyon’s Sibling Registry.”

  “Oh my God!” Samantha said. Her voice let out a kind of squeal. Then we both started laughing. It was the nervous kind of laughter—the sound that you make when you don’t know what else to do. After a few seconds Samantha said, “I can’t believe you’re a girl. I mean, so far I’ve only heard from boys.”

  “Oh,” I said. I knew I sounded dumb, but I wasn’t sure what to say.

  “I mean, you’re calling about Donor 730, right?” Samantha asked. I started to answer but Samantha kept talking. “Oh, God, I hope you are. If you’re not I’ll be so embarrassed!”

  “No, no,” I told Samantha. “I’m calling about Donor 730. He’s my donor too.”

  “Thank God!” Samantha said. She said “God” a lot. It wasn’t exactly a word that came up a whole lot in my house. Mom says she’s not sure if she even believes in God. Simon does, but he doesn’t make a big deal about it. Samantha wasn’t really using the word “God” in any religious way. I giggled again, nervously. I wasn’t sure what to say. “How old are you?” Samantha asked.

  “Thirteen,” I told her.

  “So am I,” she said.

  “I know,” I said.

  “Right. This is crazy, isn’t it?” Samantha said.

  “It sure is,” I said. “I only found out about the Lyon’s Sibling Registry a week ago.”

  “Oh,” she said. “I’ve been on it about nine months. I’ve talked to the other kids from Donor 730—Andrew, Henry, and Tate. That’s why I was so happy you were a girl.”

  “I saw their names,” I said. “I called you first because you were the only girl.”

  “Crazy,” she said again. “A sister. I always wanted a sister. When I found out about the registry, the thing I was most excited about was finding a sister, but for the last nine months I’ve only known about three brothers.” When she said that word, “brothers,” I thought of Charlie downstairs, watching his Lion King DVD on the big television in the den. I thought of the way he mouths the words as he watches the movie; he’s seen it so many times that he knows it by heart. “Don’t get me wrong,” Samantha continued. “The boys are cool. You’ll really like them.”

  “I have another brother,” I told Samantha. “You know, besides you guys on the Lyon’s Sibling Registry. His name is Charlie. He’s five.”

  “Another brother,” Samantha said. The way she said it made me realize she considered Charlie another newfound sibling of her own. “So your mom bought more vials?”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “You know,” she said. “More vials of Donor 730. Some people buy more vials so if they have another baby later on, the kids will be related.”

  “Did your mom buy more vials?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Samantha said. “She’s got extra vials in the freezer. It’s sort of gross. But I guess it’s a good thing. There’s a woman my mother heard of whose daughter had leukemia or something. The daughter needed a bone marrow transplant and it’s best to get a transplant from a relative because your blood is the same that way. The woman had more vials from the donor, so she had another baby to help her daughter. But if you already have a brother, your mom wouldn’t need to have another baby.”

  “Charlie’s my stepfather’s son,” I told her. “I guess technically he’s only my half brother. But I always call him my brother.”

  “What’s he like?” she asked.

  “Who? My stepfather?” I said.

  “No, Charlie,” Samantha said.

  “I guess he’s like other five-year-olds,” I told her. “He’s okay most of the time. He likes The Lion King and Bon Jovi.”

  “Are you guys really close?” Samantha asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. Then I corrected myself automatically, “I mean, yes. We’re close. He’s only five, so there’s a lot I can’t say to him. But I love him a lot. I can’t imagine not having him.”

  “That’s go
od,” Samantha said. “I always thought it would be hard if my mom married someone and had a baby—you know, because it would be their kid together.”

  “I guess it’s hard sometimes,” I admitted, remembering Simon’s family reunion where they all loved Charlie best.

  “I figured,” Samantha said. “That’s too bad.” Her voice was softer and I thought maybe she felt sorry for me. I thought about telling her most of the time it wasn’t so bad. Simon adopted me, and he treated me just like a daughter. He even punished me just like I was his real kid. Most of the time I loved him like he was my dad. I remembered his face when I told him he wasn’t my dad. It was all so complicated and I felt strange talking to Samantha about private things. She might be my half sister, at least biologically, but she was also a stranger.

  “What’s your mom like?” I asked Samantha to change the subject.

  “She’s cool,” Samantha said. She told me her mother is sort of older. She had Samantha when she was forty years old. They live in Pennsylvania, in a town called Haverford. There’s a college in Haverford—actually called Haverford—where her mom works. Her mom’s a guidance counselor and helps kids when they’re depressed. Samantha told me that most college students get depressed right before they graduate, when they’re scared about being in the real world and not being with their friends every day anymore. It reminded me of how Avery said Chase got upset about being away from Lizzie. “So my mom helps them figure out what they should be doing, and how to channel their energy into positive things, and all that,” Samantha said. It sounded sort of similar to my mom’s job, except my mom doesn’t have office hours and meet with students one-on-one. She just writes books to try to help kids.

  “Does your mom want you to go to Haverford?” I asked.

  “She knows I won’t, so she doesn’t try to talk me into it, thank God,” Samantha said. “I can’t wait to go to college. I know it’s not happening for a few years, but I think it’ll be really cool to go. My mom always says it’s the best years of your life. I think she just says that because I complain about school now, and she wants me to look forward to college. I think I’d like to go somewhere like California. It’d be great to be so close to the beach, don’t you think?”

  “I don’t know if I want to go that far away,” I said. “I mean, Charlie will only be ten when I go to college.”

  “It must be nice to have a sibling like that,” Samantha said. “Not off some registry, but one you’ve grown up with. Even if it is a half sibling.”

  “It is,” I said. I heard Samantha sigh sort of wistfully on the other end of the phone, and I realized that I had stopped feeling as though I were talking to a stranger. Maybe it was because Samantha was so talkative. She was probably one of those people who wasn’t shy around anyone, like Avery. Still, I was starting to feel more comfortable. “It doesn’t mean you can’t be close with siblings you meet through the registry,” I told her.

  “I know,” she said. “Hey, do you ever worry that one day you’ll meet some guy and fall in love, and then it will turn out that his father was also Donor 730?”

  “I never thought of that before,” I said.

  “It just occurred to me,” Samantha said. “But that would really be awful. I mean, it’s totally possible.”

  “I guess it’s possible,” I said.

  “I think it would make a good movie. You know, like one of those made-for-television movies on the Lifetime channel. My mom and I watch them sometimes. Maybe I should write a script.”

  “It would be perfect if you wrote a script and then went to college in California. They make all the movies out there,” I said.

  “Totally,” Samantha said, sounding like a Valley girl. “Hollywood, here I come!”

  We talked for a few more minutes. Samantha gave me her e-mail address and asked me to send her a picture. She asked for my e-mail address so she could do the same. Then I heard the phone click, and Simon’s voice. “Hello? Hello?”

  “Simon,” I said. “I’m on the phone.”

  “Oh, Leah, honey,” he said. “I’m sorry, but I just got an e-mail and I need to call someone for work. My cell phone doesn’t get great service in the house.”

  “I’ll get off in two minutes,” I told him.

  “Thanks,” he said. The phone clicked again as he hung up.

  “That was my stepfather,” I said. “I guess I better go.”

  “Wait a sec,” Samantha said. “Can I have your phone number first?”

  “Of course,” I said. I gave her my cell phone number. I didn’t want to give her the house phone number in case Mom or Simon answered. Samantha said she would call me. I knew she meant it, and I was glad. I stood up from my bed and headed downstairs. I could hear Mom shuffling around in the kitchen and I thought about the donor vials in Samantha’s freezer. I walked in. Mom looked surprised to see me, as if she’d forgotten all about me until I walked into the kitchen.

  “Leah!” she said. “Are you having dinner with us?”

  “It depends on what you’re making,” I said. That was a joke from when I was little. I used to never feel hungry until I found out that Mom was making something I liked to eat.

  “Spaghetti and meatballs,” Mom said. “Charlie’s request.”

  “I guess I’ll eat with you, then,” I said.

  “Good,” Mom said. “You can help with the salad.” She handed me a head of lettuce to wash. “So who were you talking to?” she asked.

  “When?” I asked.

  “Just now,” Mom said. “Simon said you were on the phone.”

  “Just someone from school,” I said.

  “About your project?” she asked.

  “Yes.” I started tearing pieces of lettuce to put into a bowl. “Mom?” I said. She looked up from the cutting board, where she was dicing tomatoes. “Do you have extra vials from Lyon’s?” I asked.

  “What are you talking about?” she asked.

  “Do you have extra, you know, from when you went there to have me?” I said.

  “Why are you asking me?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I’m just curious.”

  “I did at the time,” Mom said. “I don’t anymore. I married Simon, and we had Charlie.”

  “So you threw them away?” I asked incredulously.

  “Yes,” Mom said simply.

  “I can’t believe you,” I said.

  “What do you mean?” Mom asked.

  “Well, what if I needed a heart or a lung transplant, and the only hope was having a whole, real sibling to be the donor, and you threw that chance away?”

  “I don’t think they perform heart or lung transplants from living donors,” Mom said.

  “Well, bone marrow, then,” I said. “What if I had leukemia and I needed a bone marrow transplant?”

  “I don’t like this conversation,” Mom said. “It’s too morbid.”

  “No, really,” I said. “What if I needed a transplant?”

  “Plenty of people are only children, Leah,” Mom said impatiently. “It’s not that unusual. You could get a transplant from a stranger who just happens to match your blood type. Or maybe I would match. Maybe Charlie would match.”

  “Maybe you and Charlie wouldn’t match,” I said.

  “Maybe,” Mom said.

  “Parents don’t think about how the things they decide affect their kids’ lives forever,” I said.

  “Of course I think about you,” Mom said.

  “Whatever,” I said, which is one of the words on Mom’s list of words she hates. It’s not that it’s grammatically incorrect, she just thinks it’s obnoxious.

  “Leah,” Mom said, shaking her head. “There are no guarantees that you would match with someone who was your ‘whole’ sibling anyway.”

  “But the chances would be better if it wasn’t just a half sibling,” I said.

  “Yes,” Mom said. “Okay. You’re right. Can we end this conversation now?”

  “Fine,” I said.

  “
Bring the garlic bread to the table,” Mom said.

  Suddenly I felt like an outsider again, and I wasn’t sure I still wanted to have dinner with all of them. I picked up the plate of bread and walked out to the table, thinking that maybe I would just leave it there and continue going up the stairs to my room. “Hey, Leah,” Charlie called. I looked up, and he was sitting in my seat.

  “That’s my chair,” I said.

  “We traded,” Charlie said.

  “You can’t do that,” I told him. “You can only trade with someone if they agree to a trade.”

  “But you weren’t eating with us, and I like this seat better,” Charlie said.

  Mom came up behind me. “Let him have the seat,” she said. “He likes to be able to see the television from the table.”

  “You never let me watch television at dinner,” I said. Mom had made a really big deal about dinner when I was younger. It was the time she would ask me about school and tell me about what she was writing. Sometimes she let me play music in the background, but I was never allowed to watch television.

  “I guess I’ve learned to pick my battles in my old age,” Mom said.

  “That’s not fair,” I said, even though Mom hates when I say that. She says life isn’t fair in general. There are a lot of people out there who are much worse off, and we have to be grateful for what we have and work with what we’ve got. I hate when she gets all philosophical about life being unfair. It’s just a way for her to avoid the fact that she’s being nicer to Charlie than she is to me.

  “Oh, Leah—,” Mom started.

  “Forget it,” I said, cutting her off. “I’m not hungry anyway.”

  “I really wish you would sit with us,” Mom said. “You know how I feel about family dinners.”

  “Right,” I said. “That’s why you’re letting Charlie watch TV.”

  “But it’s my favorite show,” Charlie said. He sounded scared, and Mom put down the plate she was carrying and patted his shoulder.

  I rolled my eyes. “Here,” I said, thrusting the garlic bread at Mom. I headed up to my room even though I really was hungry. My stomach was even growling a little.