“I’m going to do it Mom,” I whisper. “I’m going to play soccer, like you did. I’m going to make something of myself. I won’t disappoint you.”
My cleats clink on the bleachers as I turn away and start back to the bench to get my bag. Mom is not here, and I have no one to blame for that but myself. Instead, Coach Fant was the one to watch me tonight. She probably didn’t notice how well I played. She saw how I got beat and nearly lost us the game.
I risk a look, and she’s heading away. That last stop was a good one. Hopefully she saw it. At least she’s leaving without talking to me, which means she’s not revoking my scholarship tonight.
I pick up my bag. It’s time to head home.
“Hey Thala.”
Why is she still here?
“I’m just curious. Have you ever seen your birth certificate? Will you show it to me before we’re teammates next fall? If you end up making the team, that is.”
I’m going to make the team.
“I just want to make sure you’re really human.”
Mom’s empty place at the top of the bleachers calls to me, and I look up into the stands where she should be, my fingers touching my flattened nose, my oddly round face, my ears without earlobes.
I am different.
2 Revelations
Lydia
I step out of my car and slam the door. Rain patters lightly on the tin roof covering my parking spot. I shift my bag on my back and squint through the spotlight that turned on when I arrived. I can’t see any lights on in the house. Maybe I got lucky and beat Dad home.
I step out of the carport and head out into the rain to walk to the front door. An engine revves behind me, and a white beat-up car barrels down the street. I jump off the driveway and onto the porch in time to see it swerve in front of the house and nearly crash into the garage.
Not so lucky. Dad just got home. My timing couldn’t be worse.
He gets out of the car and stumbles toward the door.
I step to the side into the overgrown rhododendron bush—maybe he won’t see me. He stumbles out of the car, mumbling and nearly slips in a puddle. Is he angry tonight?
Probably. He’s been angry since Mom died.
“What are you doing out so late?” Dad grumbles. He saw me.
“District championship for soccer.”
“In the winter?”
We’ve had this conversation before. More than twice.
“They had to postpone the fall sports tournaments because of the teacher strikes. My college coach was at the game tonight.”
“What did you say?” His voice echoes down the quiet street. “Can’t you ever speak up?” He’s really angry tonight. I consider bolting for my car, but that wouldn’t go over well.
He mumbles something and fumbles with his keys some more, but I don’t help. I’ve tried helping before and ended up on my butt.
I feel like Mom spent her life trying to convince me that Dad was an amazing man. I’m not sure I ever saw—he was always stressed and anxious about his work when she was alive, and her death finished him off.
“Get yourself to bed.” Dad finally gets the door open and stumbles inside. “It’s late. I can’t believe you insolent little brat—running all over the town at this late hour. You should be more grateful that you have a roof over your head. I wouldn’t’ve ever treated my dad with such disrespect. Coming home late, lying about soccer...”
He stumbles into the house, still cursing, and wanders down to his bedroom, passing the master bedroom on his way. No one has opened that door in over four years.
The light to his bedroom flicks on. I hear a crash and then a thud as he passes out on his bed.
I close the front door and shiver in my wet uniform.
That went better than usual. I’ve learned to avoid the landmines and keep the peace—and avoid the bruises. I’m quick from years of soccer, but Dad is stronger than me, and the last time I saw him sober, was probably the last time anyone opened the door the master bedroom.
My flip-flops snap down the hall to my bedroom. I flip on the light and strip off my wet shirt. I maneuver through my cluttered room and drop it in my laundry bucket. I’m just as bad as Dad, in a way. I’m not sure I’ve cleaned my room since Mom died. Stacks of paper and mementos line the window sill and the furniture, most of them from when she was alive. On the top of the stack next to the laundry basket is the last note she ever wrote to me.
Sleep well my soccer star! I’ll kiss you when I get home. Dream of making that winning goal, and someday it will happen.
I sit on my bed and pick up the cell phone from on my bed stand. It’s old now and won’t turn on unless it’s plugged into the wall. I haven’t used it in years, though it’s become my constant companion off the soccer field. I turn the phone slowly in my hands and let my fingers probe the divots in it while my mind wanders back to the soccer game.
If Mom were here, I would ask her about what Joana said. Why do I look so different? Did I have some kind of surgery? Was I adopted? Some rare genetic condition?
It isn’t the first time I’ve wondered, of course. I’ve always been different, but I never asked about it before Mom was gone.
I want to think that I have some of Mom in me, and I do from the hours we spent together. But, the thought that we might not have the same blood running through our veins makes me colder than the cool night air against my bare skin. Mom played college ball, and if all goes well, I will, too. But, is that where the similarities end?
I slide off my muddy shorts and throw them into the laundry basket with the rest of my clothes, and then I slip on my bathrobe and turn on my heater. Dad stopped paying for gas months ago, so we only have electric space heaters now. I huddle down next to it, positioned so it spits warm air into the robe.
My shivering stops, but my mind wandering does not. Dad keeps important documents in his bedroom—in the small cabinet next to his bed.
I should look at my birth certificate. It seems like something I should do anyway, though I’m not giving Joana a copy. After all, I will be an adult in a few weeks, and I haven’t looked at it in ages.
But I don’t go right away. I stay crouched down, enjoying feeling warm, and let the minutes tick by. Long after I’ve stopped shivering, I snuggle into the warm robe and leave the space heater.
Thankfully, Dad loves TV too much to stop paying for power. I don’t know how much money he still has, though. He collected a check from Mom’s life insurance and stopped working, but there’s no way he’s using the money responsibly. And, I know I’m not ever seeing any of it.
My feet pad lightly on the wood floor as I walk down the dark hall. I don’t turn on any lights—Dad hates it when I leave lights on unnecessarily.
Dad’s light is on. I move slowly, and peak around the corner into his room.
He’s fully dressed, passed out on his bed just as I expected. A large string of drool drips down his mouth into a puddle next to his head. So gross.
Quieter than a cat, I slip into the room and open the cabinet. There aren’t very many documents in here. Mom’s birth death certificates, her marriage certificate, Dad’s birth certificate. My lungs start to burn from holding my breath. But, there it is. My birth certificate with Mom and Dad’s name on it. But, if I was adopted, would it say anything about it? I don’t know. It all looks in order.
Dad swears and I nearly jump out of my bathrobe. I close the door to the cabinet and slowly peak over the edge of the bed. He moved his head out of the drool puddle, but he’s still asleep.
I tiptoe out of the room and down the hallway before I let myself start breathing again. My shower is short—cold water showers are never very fun in the winter.
But when I lie back in bed, I can’t fall asleep for a long time. My birth certificate looks fine, but does that mean anything?
✽✽✽
My phone buzzes.
Absently, I look over at the now-lighted screen. It’s a new email: College Entrance Survey for R
egistered Adoptees.
What?
I shove my homework to the corner of my desk. I hate chemistry.
I pick up the phone and my finger hovers over the small screen. The light dims, and then the screen goes back to black. If this is spam, then Dad is still my dad, and nothing changes. I’m stuck here with him, he’s my blood and flesh, and I have to take care of him. That option is straightforward. And depressing.
But what if I’m not who I think I am? It doesn’t make sense, though. Why wouldn’t Mom have told me? Who am I, if not Sandra Miller’s daughter?
I turn the phone back on and stare at the screen again. I think of Mom teaching me how to be aggressive. We spent hours together on the soccer field at the park near our old house. She would try and get past me, and it was hard to find it in myself to stop her, it was so fun watching her maneuver around me. She would get so mad whenever she beat me! “This ball is yours, Lydia!” she’d say. “Just take it.”
The screen goes black again.
It’s probably just spam.
I turn the phone on again and open the email.
It looks legitimate. They even know I’m registered to start school at U-dub this fall.
The flood of emotion pushes me off my bed. I drop the phone and grab my old phone and twirl it in my hands. Then I push it close to my heart. I bite my lip as the tears start to flow.
Next thing I know, I’m standing in front of the master bedroom. I don’t open the door, but I don’t need to open it to smell the room, see the pictures of Mom on the wall, feel the warmth of snuggling next to her in her giant bed. I don’t need to open it to remember speculating who was going to win the World Cup or who was going to make the national team.
Momentum carries me down to the family room, which is connected to the kitchen. Dad sits in his recliner, watching a late-night basketball game with a can of beer in his hand. Does he know where I came from?
Warning bells sound in my head. I shouldn’t be here. But I can’t leave. I stay and stare at the man who isn’t my biological dad. Who hasn’t been my Dad for years.
The game goes into a commercial break. “Hi Sean,” I say.
“What?” Dad mumbles, not looking away from the racy hamburger commercial. I should have waited for a different commercial.
“What!” Dad shouts. He turns away from the TV, which has switched to showing the hamburger instead of the naked lady. His eyes are bloodshot.
“Why are you crying?”
Because I couldn’t stop myself. My emotions are too strong, too real. “I just wanted you to know that I know you’re not my dad,” I finally make out.
Dad jumps out of his chair and grabs my shirt. “What did you say?” The smell of alcohol washes over me.
I should shut up and try to get out while I can, but something inside me keeps me talking. “I just got an email from the university.”
“Speak up!”
I yell the words at him. “You’re not my dad. Why did you ever tell me? Why would you keep something like this from me?”
“You idiot girl.” His spittle smacks my cheeks; the bitter taste of beer burning my mouth and nose. He pushes me. I stumble and then fall backward. My arms flail out, but there is nothing to grab on while I sail backward through the room. My head hits the cabinets. Hard. Lights flash in my eyes and I gasp from the sudden pain pulsing through my head.
“Your mom didn’t cheat on me, if that’s what you’re implying.”
I shake my head and push myself up, but Dad kicks my shin and then then my abdomen. I fall back onto my hands and knees. “No,” I say. “I’m not.”
“Your Mom wanted babies so bad,” His voice is loud enough to wake up our neighbors. “She couldn’t bear the fact that the man she loved came home from the war injured. She couldn’t accept me. So she adopted you.”
She. Not we. The words hit me harder than his boot. Dad didn’t want me.
I’m back on my feet now, but when I turn to leave, he follows me until I’m cornered in the kitchen. When I look back at him, all I see is his fist. The blow hits my left eye, and I stagger backward, tripping over the open dishwasher and hitting my head again, this time on the wall.
My vision goes fuzzy, but I try to concentrate on getting out of here. Dad yells fill the small corner of the kitchen, though his access to me is now blocked by the dishwasher. I try not to listen as he rants about being replaced, soccer matches that Mom insisted on seeing, a girl who is ungrateful and lazy.
Still, each word hits me harder and harder.
He hates me.
Tears burn my eyes.
Dizzy from the pain, I push off the wall and jump through his legs. His beefy hand catches me, but my leg jerks free when he kicks me on my upper thigh. I scream and shove myself onto my feet. I limp-sprint out of the room.
Dad’s drunken shouts follow me as I run away from him. But not fast enough.
“Because of you,” he yells, “I lost Mom before she died.”
I burst out the back door onto the porch. The evening rain falls lightly as I stumble around the house.
“I never wanted you! You’ve made me lose everything!” Dad slips in a puddle.
I make it to my car, glad I still have my keys in my pocket. I yank the door open and hit the gas—hard. Dad regains his balance and runs after me, screaming at the top of his lungs as he disappears in the rear-view mirror. I drive fast, windshield wipers going full throttle. Blood and tears run down my face, but I don’t care. I drive through neighborhoods, over hills, and around shopping centers until I finally pull into a small office park and stop the car.
My shirt is ripped and soaked in blood. I grab a handful of it and hold my nose. My head hurts. I’m alone in the dark, in a car in the middle of a silent city. Rain splatters on the roof of the car. I check my nose, but the blood still hasn’t stopped.
Mom would tell me that things are going to work out. She’d tell me that comeback story from college when her team was down two goals with only ten minutes left. “You can never give up,” she’d say.
But she isn’t here anymore. I reach into my pocket and pull out my old flip phone. The last time I heard her voice was on this phone.
3 Respite
Lydia
I’m not sure when I fall asleep, but when I wake up, it’s light outside and the parking lot is mostly full. Rain hits the top of the car and runs down the windshield.
I’m not going home.
I don’t have anywhere to go.
The girls on the team are the only people I really know. We moved here shortly before the accident, and I still don’t really know anyone well enough to ask for help. I’m skipping work today, and school. I can’t go walking around like this, and I can’t go home when Dad is waiting for me.
I search my brain for an option, any option that doesn’t involve me running out of gas on my way. Finally, I settle on Maria’s house. We had a team party there last week, and I think I could find my way back. We’re not close, but she would probably let me come in and get cleaned up.
She’s my best option.
Now to wait for school to end. I start the car and leave the office park and drive until I find a nearly deserted parking lot next to a library. I lower my seat and wait as the sun comes out and the clouds blow away. My stomach rumbles, and my head aches, but I don’t dare step out of the car with how much blood is caked on my shirt. Moms come with toddlers and go in and out of the library, but I shrink deeper into my seat and they don’t see me.
Why didn’t Mom tell me I was adopted? Lots of people are adopted. If I’m a registered adoptee, why didn’t I ever know? Maybe Mom told me, but I didn’t realize it? Maybe she would have told me if only I had listened.
When study groups from my school start showing up, I pull my seat up and start toward Maria’s house, glad to finally have something else to think about.
I can’t see Maria’s house curbside because there are hundreds of trees and more than 30 steep steps going up to her door. There’
s no way I’m going to drive my car up her driveway, though. One, I don’t think it can make it up that steep of a hill, and two, it would leak oil all over. 30 steps it is. I just hope no one else I know will see me on my way up there. And, that I won’t have to turn around and come back down before getting cleaned up.
I take a deep breath and step out of the car, intending to sprint up the steps. Instead, after spending all day hiding in my car, my vision goes black and I lose my balance. My arm flies out and I manage to grab the side of the car, gasping as my body falls against it. Slowly this time, I push myself back into a standing position. My right leg barely moves where Dad kicked it, and my head aches from the exertion of standing up. I start up the stairs. My sprint is more like a crawl, and I’m sure the entire neighborhood has seen me by the time I limp up each stair and get to the door.
I ring the doorbell.
Will Maria be home? Does she have siblings? What if a brother answers the door?
What if no one is home?
The door opens and it’s Maria.
Something finally went right, though she’s wearing a neon pink bikini.
“What are you wearing?” I blurt out at the same time she asks me about my appearance, which I’m sure is no less shocking, though the rearview mirror only tells part of the story.
She waves me in, and I limp inside. I wipe stupid tears out of my eyes as she closes the door behind me.
“I’m really sorry. Are you just leaving to go swimming or something? I don’t mean to interrupt.”
“You’re fine!” Maria puts her arm around my shoulder and gives it a squeeze. “I’ve been on the back porch, sun bathing.”
“Sun bathing? In the winter?”
Maria laughs. “I take advantage of every opportunity we get sun. And I mean every opportunity. Don’t worry—I have a space heater out there with me—it’s a pretty awesome setup. But Lydia, you look awful. What happened?”
She’s moved away from me, and her eyes are averted. I’m avoiding her eyes, too.
The Forgotten World Page 2