by Caela Carter
“What do you want to do?” Elena asks when we’re alone in my room.
She’s always asking stuff like that. Like I’m the leader. Like I’m the real girl. When Dad and Person got married, she whispered to me, “I was so upset when my parents got divorced but you made it OK. Now I get a sister.”
I know she’ll go with it when I say, “It’s a secret.”
Elena nods, seriously. Her skin is almost as dark as mine and she wears her hair in a bunch of twists like I do, sometimes. But her eyes are gray-blue. She says she’s mixed—black and white. Because both of her parents are also mixed—black and white. Person is white and Ms. K is white and Dr. Fredrick is Japanese and most the kids at school are white except Hannah and Quentin are black and Emilio is Latino and Brian is Japanese. Person says Julian and I are also mixed in some way just like Dad and Elena, except probably with some Spanish thrown in. But she doesn’t know how or why or mixed of what exactly. Julian and I are Onlys and we don’t know what else we are so I always end this conversation as quickly as it starts.
“It’s important but I can’t tell you why and you can’t ask,” I tell Elena.
She nods again.
“OK, come on,” I say. I pull her to Julian’s closet. I’m really going to do it. I’m going to get all of the food out and make sure he can’t ever put any more in. I’m going to do what he can’t. I’m going to force him to trust our person.
We stand and look at it. The closet is big and his clothes and shoes take up only a quarter of it. The rest is empty. There are shelves on the left where T-shirts and jeans and shorts are folded. There are a few hangers on the right. There are five pairs of shoes lined up neatly on the floor.
“Is that a candy wrapper?” Elena asks, pointing to a fold between two of his jeans.
I nod.
“He’s hiding candy in here?” she asks. She dives for it and pulls out a Milky Way. “Score!” she yells, ripping open the wrapper. “These are my favorite. Want half?”
I stare at her dumbfounded. It hadn’t even occurred to me to eat the food Julian was saving in here. That seems somehow worse, a greater violation, meaner, than throwing it away.
But no. It’s his fault. He needs to trust, or at least act like it. He needs to work harder for Person because we keep asking her to work so hard for us.
That’s what Dr. Fredrick said: stop hiding food, stop lying, and the trust will follow. Act like you trust your mother, and when nothing terrible happens, you actually will trust her. Or something like that.
I open my palm and Elena puts half the chocolaty-caramely-goodness in it. We munch together, then I say, “We get all of the food out of here. We put it in your bag and you take it to your house and throw it away there Monday.”
I expect Elena to ask why. Anyone else would ask why. But she says, “You mean my other house.”
“Sure,” I say. I’m always forgetting that Elena thinks she’s a part of this too. This Person-Dad-Julian-Flora thing. She’s only here every seventh night but she says my.
“My room.”
“My family.”
“My dad.”
“My stepmom.”
“My remote control.”
My person and my dad both say she’s right and I like Elena (sometimes) so I don’t bother to argue with them. But I’ve been in lots and lots of families and the only definition I’ve come up with is this: families are people who live together. So, Elena doesn’t count.
“OK,” Elena says.
We tear through each of Julian’s shoes. We run our fingers through the folds of all of his T-shirts. We empty the pockets of his pants and shorts. We uncover a pile of food. Stuff that’s normal, like two more candy bars (that Elena eats) and four granola bars, and a few packets of trail mix that Person likes to keep in her purse. And stuff that’s definitely stale now, like rock-hard slices of bread and halves of Pop-Tarts. And stuff that’s gross, like moldy slices of cheese and green chicken fingers from the school lunch.
“Why does he keep all this?” Elena asks.
I shrug. She’d never get it. She’d never get anything.
She thinks Julian and I are lucky.
But the pile is too big. It’s big enough to bury my feet in. A few weeks ago, Person said Julian was getting better, that he was showing her his closet and only hiding a few pieces of food in it.
He’s getting worse since we found out about the baby.
He’s worse and I’m worse.
I don’t want to be worse. I don’t want us to be worse.
“He has to stop,” Elena says. I nod. I don’t think she knows what’s coming in six months. I’m pretty sure Dad and Person haven’t told her. Yet. She just thinks Julian’s closet is gross.
“I won’t say anything,” Elena says.
I smile.
Elena throws her arm around me and we drag the pile of food to my room and hide it in the back of her overnight bag. Doing that with Elena made it almost fun. It made me almost forget that these pounds and pounds of food are going to destroy our lives.
The next day Person is home from work and the sun is shining so when Elena asks for a picnic at the park, Person and Dad get all excited and start pulling things out of the fridge, making sandwiches and shouting about lemonade.
Actually, Elena said, “Can we have a picnic in the park like we used to last year?” Even though I think we’ve only had one picnic ever.
After a while, we pile out of the apartment and walk down a little hill toward the pond at the back of the park. Julian is carrying a cooler since we didn’t have a picnic basket. I have a blue bedsheet since we didn’t have a red-and-white checked blanket. Elena has a pitcher of lemonade. Person and Dad walk behind us, holding hands. The sun massages my face. I’m in sandals for the first time all spring so I can feel the grass tickle the sides of my feet. For a second I wonder if this is what Person means by family. People who do things outside together just because they’re close by each other and the sun is finally shining after a long winter.
But that definition is too confusing. Because I’m glad to be with Julian but I’m still mad at him for faking happy with Person and for stealing food. And because I love Person but I don’t love the baby inside her, at least not yet. And because I don’t understand Elena at all. So she can’t be my family.
I’ll stick to my definition. Families are people who live together.
Once we’re settled on the sheet with plastic cups of lemonade and slices of sandwiches and a huge bowl of strawberries between us, Person says, “So, kiddos, should we tell Elena the good news?”
That’s all it takes and Julian is jumping up and down. It makes me so mad at him. It’s all fake, all that jumping. And the cheering.
“We’re gonna have a baby! We’re gonna have a baby!”
He’s almost too loud and jumpy to understand what he’s saying. I narrow my eyes at him.
“What?” Elena asks.
“Julian and I are going to have a brother or sister. It’ll be born,” I say.
“And you,” Dad says loudly. “Of course, baby. It’ll be your brother or sister too.”
“I know,” I say. “It’ll be my brother or sister. A baby.”
Elena is shaking her head back and forth. “No,” she says. “He means mine. It’ll be my brother or sister. Wait!” She turns to Person. “You’re pregnant?”
Person nods. “You’ll be such a great big sister, Elena,” she says. “You can hold the baby and sing to it.”
“You’re pregnant?” Elena says again, more loudly. Then she laughs. “I thought you were getting fat,” she says. She smirks toward me.
I sort of thought Person was getting fat too, but I don’t think it’s funny. Who cares if she’s fat or skinny, as long as she’s mine.
“Elena!” Dad says. “Apologize.”
Person laughs. “It’s OK, Jon. She’s right. I am getting fatter. I’m eating for two.”
Elena meant it to be mean. I’m pretty sure Person knows that.
But she pretends not to care. Or she doesn’t care. I can never tell when someone is pretending.
“When?” Elena asks. It sounds like the sun and the strawberries aren’t making her happy anymore.
Julian sits back down and starts eating quietly. I see him sneak a few strawberries into the pocket of his cargo shorts. He’ll try to hide them later. And he’ll probably find out all of his food is missing.
“Five and a half months from now,” Person sings.
I watch Elena’s face as it shifts through a lot of expressions. She says, “They knew already?” nodding at Julian and me.
Person and Dad look at each other and sort of freeze like that.
“When did you tell them?” Elena asks.
“Only a few days ago, sweetie,” Dad says. But I’m good at math so I count in my brain. Ten. It was ten whole days ago.
I don’t say anything.
“Why?” Elena says. “Why didn’t you tell me first? Or at least at the same time?”
No one answers. They look so confused about this, but the answer is simple: they didn’t tell you because you weren’t there.
“I’m sorry,” Dad says. “We should have waited.” He pauses. “I’m pretty excited to see you hold a baby.”
Elena’s face does that shifting thing again. Sad. Angry. Sad. Happy. Confused. Sad. Happy. It finishes on happy but after all the shifting I don’t think the happy is real.
“I hope it’s a boy,” she says. “Then I’ll have a real brother.”
“Elena!” Dad says again. Even though Julian and I don’t care about this. “Julian is your real brother.”
“He’s a stepbrother,” Elena says.
Julian and I freeze. We don’t call Elena our sister but we’ve never thought about her like a stepsister either.
“You all share a dad,” Person says. “So—”
“Nope,” Elena says. “We don’t really share a dad. They don’t even know their dad.”
Julian and I look at each other. He raises his eyebrows.
When you and your brother are Onlys it gets lonely being mad at him. I decide it’s over. I have the food. His closet is empty except for clothes. I don’t have to be mad at him anymore.
“Stepbrother, stepsister,” Elena says again.
It seems like Elena is trying to be mean but she’s failing because we don’t care about stepsister, foster sister, friend. We only know she’s not one of us.
I shrug. “OK,” I say.
“No, not OK,” Person says. “I mean, there’s nothing wrong with stepsisters, but that’s not what you guys are. That’s not how it works. Julian and Flora are adopted by both me and your father. There are no steps here.”
“You!” Elena says. “You’re my stepmom.”
“Oh, well, that’s true,” Person says.
“You’re my stepmom,” Elena says. “And you’re their mom.”
Person says, “Yes.”
“Then how aren’t they my stepbrother and stepsister?”
Person and Dad stare at each other.
I don’t even know why we’re talking about all of this. I thought we were supposed to be talking about the baby.
“Sometimes I hate how confusing this all is,” Elena says. Her voice sounds more normal. Dad throws an arm around her.
“I know,” he says. “But, are you excited for your new brother or sister?” he asks.
Elena shrugs under his shoulder. “The baby will be more mine though, right? More than theirs?”
She’s looking at her dad, but Julian says, “No!”
“Yes!” Elena says. “He’s my dad’s baby.”
I watch Julian get angry. I feel calm. At least he’s real when he’s angry.
“He’s going to live with us!” Julian says. “He’ll be more ours. Mine and Flora’s.”
That’s true. Elena will only see him once every seven days because he won’t even go to St. Peter’s school with us. Babies don’t go to school.
“No!” Elena screeches. “He’s, like, my dad’s actual baby.”
“He’s our dad too!” Julian says.
Person is trying to shush us but it doesn’t work.
“I mean for real. He’s really my dad. And the baby will be the same way. Like made of my dad.”
“Well, he’s coming out of our mom!” Julian yells. “He’s inside her right now.”
“God, you guys don’t get it,” Elena says. “She’s not your mom like that. She didn’t have you.”
“Have us?” I ask. I’m calm.
Julian has all of our anger. I let him have it.
“You weren’t born from her,” Elena says. “The baby isn’t really related to you at all.”
“We weren’t born from anyone,” Julian says. “So what?”
“Huh?” Elena says. “What do you mean you weren’t born from anyone?”
“We weren’t like born like that,” Julian says, still angry though.
“You were like grown in a test tube or something?” Elena says, looking at Person.
“No!” Person says.
At the same time, Julian and I say, “Maybe.”
Person is trying so hard to keep her voice calm and quiet like it always is, and also to be sure Elena can hear her. She says, “Flora and Julian are a little confused right now. Of course they were born—”
“No we’re not,” Julian says.
“Dad!” Elena screams.
“Elena, shh,” Dad says.
She turns to look at him. “Dad, they think they weren’t born?”
“We’re still figuring some stuff out,” Person says.
“I can’t, Dad. Really? You have kids who think they weren’t born?”
“Elena,” Person says. “After adoption people can be confused—”
But Elena isn’t looking at Person anymore. She’s looking at her dad and right now he really does seem like he’s more hers than anyone’s because they’re talking with their eyes the way Julian and I can. And their eyes are both the same mix of gray and blue and Julian’s and mine are just brown, unlike anyone else at this picnic.
“How am I supposed to be happy about this, Dad?” she says. “I’m still getting used to Julian and Flora. Now there’s another one? You want me to be happy? You barely even see me anymore! You won’t care about me at all now!”
She takes off into the park and Dad runs after her.
Julian sits and freezes that crazy smile on his face. He picks up a strawberry. I pick up my sandwich. We munch.
Person says, “You guys OK?” And we nod.
It’s sort of nice to be the calm ones for once.
There’s a hand shaking my shoulders. It’s the middle of the night. “Florey! Florey!” Julian is whispering.
It takes me a second to figure out what’s going on and where I am. I half sit with my wrist rubbing my eyeballs. “Julian?” I say.
“Shh!” Julian says.
Suddenly I’m scared. It’s never Julian in my room. It’s always me in Julian’s room. It has not been Julian in my room since—
I jump out of bed and leap toward him. I throw my arms around him. “They started again? Is it the baby?”
Julian pulls back. “Huh? What started? What about the baby?”
“Nightmares,” I say. They used to be so bad. They were the screaming, shaking kind of nightmares. They are in my memory as long as I can remember. I would hear Julian when he had a nightmare no matter where I was, in any room, on any floor, in any house we lived in and I would try and try to wake him up but it was always too late. The nightmares always won.
Julian had nightmares here too. He had them for so long. I don’t remember why they stopped, how they stopped.
I guess they didn’t stop.
“Another nightmare,” I say. “Because of the baby?”
Julian shrugs my arms off of his shoulder. “No,” he says. He glances at Elena. “She is my nightmare. And she’s real.”
He points and I see Elena sleeping on the pullout next to m
e, her breath going in and out evenly.
I almost jump. Tomorrow is a day off from school which for some reason means Elena spends both Saturday and Sunday night at our house. I had forgotten she was there.
“Huh?” I say. I have no idea what he’s talking about. I wonder for a second if that’s what it’s always like to talk to me.
“She stole my food,” Julian says.
And like that, I remember. I feel my cheeks burn, but Julian doesn’t notice.
“She stole it all,” he whispers. “She doesn’t care if we eat or not. She doesn’t care about us at all. She stole it all, Flora. Every piece from every little pocket. How did she know? How did she do that? What if . . .”
My heart is hammering. I should tell him. Explain to him I was mad. But I’m not mad anymore. I should grab the plastic garbage bag full of old stale food out of Elena’s backpack and give it back to him.
But I’m frozen. I can’t.
Person says she’ll love us forever, but she’s about to have a real baby. She already has a real baby—inside her the way we never were. A real baby who will trust her so easily because it won’t have another choice. Or another mother or mothers who make it hard to trust your real mother once you find her.
I can’t let Julian keep stealing food. I can’t let him keep messing this up. We have to deserve Person.
“Do you know where it is, Flora?” Julian asks, a pleading tone to his voice.
I shake my head. Elena shifts in her sleep and we both freeze and stare at her until it seems for sure that she fell back asleep again.
“Then you’re going to help me get her back, right?”
“Get the food back?” I ask.
Julian shakes his head. “She probably threw it away. I have to start all over. But . . . you’ll help me get her back,” he says, nodding to the lump on the bed next to mine. “She’s not our sister anyway.”
I nod. “I’m your sister,” I say.
“Team,” Julian says.
“Team,” I say.
I hope he never finds out it was me.
Nine
FAMILIES HAVE RECORDS
AFTER ELENA GOES HOME IN THE morning, Person sits us down at the kitchen table. There are no plates or food. Instead, there’s papers.