by Jasmine Walt
“Umm . . . I don’t really have anything to make . . .”
“No problem. Annie and I’ll stop by the store on our way—we’ll surprise you!” she said, her words bursting with enthusiasm.
“Sounds good,” I replied.
“Great! See you soon!” She hung up before I could say goodbye.
Glancing at my laptop screen, I noticed there was a new message in the inbox. It was from the professor—I couldn’t believe how quickly he’d replied.
Ms. Larson,
Very well. How about Friday at 3:30 in the afternoon at the café in the Burke Museum? Please let me know if either the time or location is unsuitable to you.
Until then,
Marcus Bahur
Professor of Classical Archaeology
University of Washington
University of Oxford
“If nothing else, Thora, this should be interesting,” I muttered, reaching over the arm of the couch to rub the top of the tabby’s head.
I’d been waiting at the bar, shoulder-to-shoulder with dozens of other patrons, for about ten minutes. Finally, a harried bartender finished making the three drinks I’d ordered—all vodka cranberries—and set them on the bar. I paid in cash and reached for the drinks just as the woman on my right lurched against me. In my attempt to grab the bar for support, I knocked two of the glasses over, and bright red liquid splashed directly onto the man beside me.
“Oh!” he exclaimed, leaning away too late.
“Oh no!” I stared at the blaring crimson stain marring the lower half of his formerly pristine, pale gray shirt. “Oh God! I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to . . .” I trailed off, losing all sense of coherency when I glanced up.
Eyes the color of Baltic amber held my gaze, too vibrant and rich to be considered brown. I couldn’t help but wonder if they were an artifice. Strong, straight, and defined, his bronze features were equally as striking, especially when paired with the hint of dark-as-night hair covering his shaved head. He was absolutely stunning.
As he watched me, frustration seemed to blanket his face. “It’s not a problem,” he assured me in a deep, smooth-as-milk-chocolate voice. It was slightly accented, sounding Middle Eastern with a sprinkling of French and maybe a touch of German or Swedish.
“But . . . but . . .” was all I could say.
The corners of the stranger’s mouth turned down in a partial frown and he shook his head. “Really, it’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”
“Are—are you sure?” I asked quietly, incapable of breaking eye contact but desperately needing to. I blamed my awkwardness on the wine I’d consumed during dinner. He’s just a guy in a bar, I told myself. Get a grip!
“Yes, perfectly,” he assured me again. “I believe your friends are waiting for you—if those”—he smirked as his eyes flicked to the table where Cara and my other best friend, Annie, were sitting—“are your friends?”
Following his eyes, I found Annie and Cara, watching us in awe. Their wide-eyed expressions mirrored mine perfectly. “Um, yeah . . . those are my friends,” I admitted, and then I remembered that they had been two-thirds of the reason I’d been at the bar. “Damn! Their drinks . . . now I’ll have to wait for another ten minutes,” I muttered.
Within seconds, the enthralling stranger had snagged a bartender and ordered replacements for my spilled beverages. “I’ll help you carry them . . . to make sure they actually make it to their destination this time,” he teased.
I didn’t know how to reply to that, and he didn’t wait, so I just followed him to the table where Cara, a blue-eyed goldilocks, and Annie, a half-Japanese beauty, sat and stared. They gaped at my new acquaintance as he set the drinks on the table.
“I hope you ladies have a nice night,” he said, flashing us a tight-lipped smile. He met my eyes one last time, then turned and walked away.
“Whoa!” Cara nearly shouted.
“Uh . . . yeah,” Annie added.
“I know,” I agreed. Wishing the gorgeous stranger had joined us, I searched the crowd for him, but he’d already disappeared.
2
Mom & Dad
I sat down beside my mom, curling my legs under me and relaxing into the couch with a satisfied sigh. My belly was full of the most delicious take-out Thai food the University District had to offer, my mom was with me and nearly as excited about the upcoming excavation as I was, and I had nothing but free time for weeks to come. Damn, life is good.
“Sweetie,” my mom began in a voice that instantly told me something was wrong. “I came out here for a reason . . . not just to surprise you.” She took a deep breath, either to calm her nerves or strengthen her resolve. “Your dad and I were talking the other night, and we decided that, well . . . Lex, haven’t you ever wondered why you don’t really look like your dad?” she asked, gazing intently at the empty wine glass in her hand. Sickly yellow light from the kitchen reflected off its convex, crystalline surface.
What’s that supposed to mean? Tons of people don’t look much like their parents. Why would she ask me that? Unless . . . she can’t mean that . . . Dad’s not my . . .
My mom had asked me a question. But her words . . . I couldn’t figure out what they meant. Deciphering the true, hidden meaning behind words was what I was best at, but I couldn’t decipher these words. They implied that there was something I should have noticed before, something that should have been obvious. But she can’t mean that Dad’s not my . . . not my . . .
Suddenly, I was more aware of the bite-sized living room than ever before. The bookcases set against the opposite wall were in serious need of dusting, and I had the urge to reorganize the hefty collection of historical fiction and romance books packed onto the shelves. The framed prints on the wall between the bookcases captivated me more than ever before. Dali’s Persistence of Memory stood out beyond all others. I felt a strange kinship with the melting pocket watches, like I, too, was losing form.
On my right hand, my grandpa’s ring became hypnotizing. Grandma Suse, his widow, gave it to me on my sixteenth birthday, and I’d had the wide, silver band resized to fit my slender ring finger. Its inky obsidian stone seemed to suck in the light rather than reflect it back to the waiting world. Was my greedy ring sucking in all of the air too? I couldn’t seem to draw a full breath.
Haven’t you ever wondered why you don’t really look like your dad?
It was true—I didn’t really resemble my dad. Had I noticed before? I looked so much like my mom that I’d figured I’d inherited less obvious characteristics from my dad—his laugh, the way he walked, his single-minded determination. But now, I realized those characteristics were undefinable as well. Truth stared me in the face, forcing me to see. She really means that Dad’s not my real dad.
But why tell me now? How did this happen? Possibilities, vile and corrosive, swirled around in my mind. Had my parents separated and been with other people before I was born? Had my mom had an affair? Had I been adopted? The last, I knew without a doubt, was wrong—other than differences in coloring, I was practically a physical clone of my mom. But an affair or separation was still a possibility. Is my happy family a lie?
Carefully, I reached for my wine glass with a trembling hand, hoping to numb myself with its contents. As my fingers touched the smooth stem, fear cleared my thoughts. Fear, and unexpected anger. If I was someone else’s daughter because my mom cheated on my dad . . .
“What do you mean, exactly?” I asked, voice sharp and eyes narrowed. It felt like eons had passed since my mom initially asked the question, but my chaotic thought process had borne conclusions in less than a minute.
Hesitantly, my mom raised her warm brown eyes to search mine, and then she shifted them to focus on the wall behind the couch. “Grandma Betsy had a really hard time having kids. She was given certain drugs. At the time, doctors were giving specific hormones to women who were at risk of miscarrying. Betsy, well, she was one of the women treated that way.”
“So . . . ?” I prompted, impatient.
Suddenly my mom was looking at me, weariness in her eyes. She sighed. “The treatment had an unforeseen side effect on the children. They were sterile, Lex. Your dad couldn’t have children.”
Dad couldn’t have kids? That meant Mom never had an affair . . . they never separated . . .
Relief flooded my body. It began in my lungs as I involuntarily inhaled a delicious breath of air, and it flowed out toward my nerve endings. Mom and Dad were never separated . . . my family is real! I was ecstatic.
My mom furrowed her brow.
Abruptly, relief fled from my body. If Dad couldn’t have kids . . . “Then who’s my father?” This can’t be happening.
“We went to the best place, where the donors were all guaranteed to be intelligent, talented men with a healthy family history.”
But none of those intelligent, talented men were Joe Larson, my dad—or rather, the man I’d believed to be my dad until two minutes ago. Despite my best efforts to hold it together, my chin began to tremble. The quivering spread to my cheeks and then throughout my entire body, but I didn’t cry. I was too stunned to cry.
Watching my devastation, my mom said, “Maybe I shouldn’t have told you, but your dad thought . . .” Again, she sighed.
I pulled my legs up to my chest and fit my head between my knees. My mom tried to comfort me by rubbing my back, but I flinched at her touch. I stared down at the hardwood floor, trying to focus . . . trying to breathe.
Me, the very essence of my being, retreated inside, seeking the only haven available: solitude.
Thud-THUMP. Thud-THUMP. Thud-THUMP.
I focused on my heartbeat. It was still the same. It hadn’t changed in the last few minutes, unlike everything else I knew about myself . . . or thought I’d known.
I’m still me.
Right?
3
Nightmares & Dreams
“Are you sure you—”
“Let’s just go already, Mom,” I interrupted. I knew I was being a brat in the worst way—my mom felt awful for lying to me about my parentage for twenty-four years, and I was taking out my inner turmoil on her, but . . . she’d lied to me. So had my dad. And it wasn’t just a little, I-broke-your-favorite-vase-and-told-you-it-was-the-cat lie, oh no. It was a whopper of a lie, requiring me to do a complete identity overhaul. I couldn’t just pretend that everything was hunky-dory. I’d never been a good liar.
Searching for a safe place in my mind, I focused on the beads of rain clinging to the passenger window of my mom’s dark red sedan. As the car picked up speed, the droplets seemed reluctant to stream across the glass, moving in a stuttering rhythm.
Part of me worried about leaving Thora alone so abruptly, but I knew Annie would take good care of her. I’d sent her a text in the wee hours of the morning, asking her to cat-sit for the next three weeks, and she’d agreed immediately. She hadn’t asked a single question. Annie had the kind heart of a saint, and I loved her for it.
As I felt myself falling asleep, a small sense of relief washed over me.
“Haven’t you ever wondered why you don’t really look like your dad?” my mom asked, her voice echoing all around me.
I was standing in front of a wood-framed mirror hung at eye level on a seemingly endless wall. A picture of my dad’s face was pinned to the mirror’s frame. I examined his features closely, and then did the same with my own, attempting to reconcile their many differences.
Maybe his lips, I thought . . . those could look a little like mine. But after cross-referencing the reflection of my own narrow, rosy mouth with his, I realized they weren’t a match.
Horrified, I stared at the photo of my dad, watching his mouth disappear completely. When I tried to scream, there was only silence. I looked into the mirror, and with gut-wrenching terror, realized that my own mouth had vanished as well.
My ears were next, as were my dad’s in his picture. And then my long, dark brown hair.
I brought my hands up to my face, attempting to hold the remaining features in place. As my nose vanished, so did my ability to breathe. I panicked, trying to suck air through a smooth expanse of unbroken skin.
I watched my frantic brown eyes until the lack of oxygen caused dark spots to wash over my vision. I glanced one last time at the picture of my dad before my world faded to black.
All I could think was, I am nothing.
I woke with my head resting against the chilly car window. Involuntarily, I brought my hand up to feel my face. Everything was right where it belonged, including the salty tears streaming down my cheeks.
Glancing out the window, I realized the rain had turned to light snow and we were nearing my hometown. Yakima, the central Washington city where I’d grown up, was really quite demonstrative in terms of the stereotypical seasons. There are four distinct times of the year: sweat-inducing summers, reddish-gold falls, snowy winters, and flowery springs. I was always amazed by the way the fruit trees in the countless orchards accentuated the seasons. Nothing screamed winter like bare branches sheathed in ice, or heralded spring like apple and cherry blossoms.
As the familiar, mostly barren landscape of the high desert glided past, I wondered if coming home and seeing my dad was going to make the realignment of my identity any easier. Or, would it become infinitely more difficult?
Silently, each unique, beautiful snowflake found a home on the deck around me. In the back of my mind I felt envious of the moonlit flakes—each was well-defined and individual. I, on the other hand, was vague, undefined. They didn’t have to worry about where they might fit in, let alone where they came from. They would just . . . land. Where am I supposed to land?
I’d been home for two weeks, and so far, the frigid Yakima winter had proven to be the only thing that could bring me peace. The falling snow offered a distraction from my morose thoughts. And because it rarely snowed in Seattle, sitting outside in below-freezing weather didn’t belie my sanity too much. It was snowing, after all.
At a knock on the sliding glass door, I jumped. I heard it open partially. “Lex?” It was my mom.
“Yeah?”
“Cara’s on the phone, sweetie. She said she tried your cell but it went straight to voicemail. She sounds really worried—you should talk to her.” My mom had always been a master guilt-tripper.
I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and surrendered. “Fine.” I could only avoid talking to people for so long. And if I was being honest with myself, even I was getting sick of the moping, sullen woman I’d become. I needed to rejoin the world, bask in the sunshine, seize the day, and . . . you know, all that bullshit.
As I entered the house, my mom handed me the phone with a sympathetic smile. I wandered upstairs to my old bedroom and shut the door, sitting cross-legged on the burgundy duvet. I focused on taking long, deep breaths, then closed my eyes and raised the phone to my ear.
“Hey, Cara,” I said in a reluctant, slightly hoarse voice. Not speaking for days tended to do that to a voice.
“Oh my God, Lex! It’s so good to hear your voice,” she said enthusiastically. “So, are you going to let me know what the hell’s going on? Why’d you just take off? I mean, weren’t you planning on staying in the Yak with your fam for only a few days during Christmas? How much family time can you really stand? Aren’t things still bad with your sister?”
I really didn’t want to lie to Cara—at least, not outright. After searching for the courage to respond to her barrage of questions, I spoke carefully. “Uh, yeah . . . I was planning on only being here for a few days.” True. “But when my mom was about to leave, I suddenly felt like I needed more time with her.” Also true. “So, on a whim, I just sort of decided to ride back to Yakima with her and stay until after Christmas.” True-ish . . . success! But I couldn’t ignore the sick feeling churning in my stomach.
“So . . . you’re not, like, dying or anything?” she joked.
“Nope . . . not that I’m aware of. I guess I’ve just been really distracted here. It’s been a long tim
e since I’ve been home.” The partial truth was coming more easily.
“Don’t worry, darling. I’ll see you when you get back,” Cara said, and I smiled sorrowfully at her usual term of endearment.
“Definitely,” I replied.
“Love ya, Lex. Don’t be a phone stranger. I mean, you can only expect me to survive for so long with Lex deprivation . . .”
Surprising myself, I laughed. “Got it. Love ya, too.”
After goodbyes were said and the call was disconnected, I stood and stretched. Still clad in my winter deck-wear, I was extremely overheated and a little sweaty. I tore off my mittens, unzipped and removed my navy-blue down jacket, and slid my feet out of my waterproof, fur-lined boots. I traded my jeans for some purple and blue plaid pajama bottoms before curling up on a bed that had always been mine, in a room that had always been mine, with the odd sense that neither belonged to me anymore. That Lex no longer existed.
Unsure of how I’d fallen asleep so early in the evening, I awoke. Night had fallen completely, darkening the room. My first thought was of being cold, so I quickly maneuvered myself under the covers. My second thought was one of relief—for the first time in two weeks, I had slept without having the nightmare. My third thought was about the strangely vivid dream I’d just awoken from. It had taken place in my parents’ house, and it could easily have been real, except that the dream switched back and forth between two time periods. The more I thought about it, the clearer my memory of it became.
Standing in the doorway between the kitchen and dining room, I saw my mom sitting at her brand-new, oak dining room table, her hands clasped together on the surface. My dad was sitting across from her.
Shaking her head, she said, “I just think it’s too late. We’ve gone such a long time with this secret . . . it just seems easier to keep it.”