The Stranger In My Home: I thought she was my daughter. I was wrong.

by Parks, Adele

  Anyway, today we are both accompanying her; Katherine has had nine weekly sessions now and this week we’ve been asked to attend a family conference and review. Jeff has advised me that, above all, it’s important to appear balanced and reasonable. He drives. It’s raining hard, the wipers swish left to right, squeaking and groaning. The traffic grinds practically to a standstill, two lines of steel and tyres – one going north, one going south – snaking as far as I can see.

  ‘We’re going to be late,’ I mutter. I twist a damp tissue in my hands. If anyone hears me, they don’t bother to respond. The stop-start nature of the journey is frustrating; each jerk and halt frays my nerves further. I think about all the toxic fumes that are being belched out into the atmosphere; I wonder what the impact on our health really is. The creeping cars give me plenty of opportunity for voyeurism. It’s funny that drivers forget they are surrounded by windows. They grab their phones and make calls, reply to emails and texts, even though they shouldn’t. They greedily stuff sandwiches into their mouths, chew gum, pick their teeth, fingernails and noses. I see one middle-aged woman suck her thumb. We’re all in the same boat but act as though we are quite independent from each other. Likely as not, we are listening to the same songs and news stories on the radio, we are all desperate to unfurl, to stretch, we are all worried that we are going to be late. I wonder whether I’ve ever been sitting in a traffic jam next to Tom, Olivia and the others. Possibly even passed Annabel when she was alive. How many times have we unknowingly crossed one another in the street, in a car park, in a supermarket? We live in the same county. It’s possible we did so, when we existed in ignorant bliss. I wouldn’t have noticed them. They would have just been another family, going about their business as we went about ours.

  I become aware of the scream of sirens coming from behind us. I wonder how the ambulance will get past. Slowly, like prehistoric animals, rather than machines capable of moving at 120 miles per hour, cars start to nudge towards the kerb. The truth is, someone else’s disaster is simply an inconvenience to the many who dwell in hermetically closed indifference.

  ‘By the way, you ought to know, I’ve told Betty about the swap,’ pipes up Katherine. I swing around in my seat to look at her, but she’s steadfastly staring out of the window, refusing to meet my eye. Jeff gently puts his hand on my knee and so I turn back to the front and concentrate on looking at the tail lights on other cars. They are blurred. It could be the rain on the windscreen, it could be my tears. I don’t know.

  ‘Fair enough,’ says Jeff calmly. ‘Thanks for bringing us up to date.’ He manages not to sound sarcastic. A thought occurs to me: he might not be being sarcastic.

  We travel in a loaded silence. I can’t bear it. We are in the system now. My acute fear of social workers, lawyers and people with forms who work for the local authorities crystallises. Jeff has been insistent that we must already somehow be in the system, since Tom made his original inquiries at the hospital where the girls were born, but Tom has assured me that he was discreet, evasive, that nothing official has been documented.

  ‘It is bullshit coming to a counsellor anyway, but coming and then not talking about the issues is more so,’ Katherine says defiantly. I don’t doubt she’s exploiting the fact that I’m in shock over her revelation and therefore haven’t got the energy to remonstrate about her language. My restraint is rewarded by her altering her tone to a slightly more conciliatory one. ‘To be fair, I wasn’t actually planning on spilling the beans. I didn’t for the first few sessions. I played along. But then, you know …’ She shrugs. The gesture says, ‘Duh.’

  ‘Know what?’ asks Jeff gently.

  ‘I answered all her questions on whether I understand that there is a choice in finding out about the harmful mutation in the BRCA1 gene or the BRCA2 gene. I just hate that particular combination of letters and numbers. They hide behind the technical names, make it sound like a food colouring rather than something hideous. Question after question. Do I want to know if I have it? How will I feel if I do have it? Do I think I’m ready to have that sort of information? I promise you, she never shuts up. You should know that.’ Despite her show of bravado, I can hear in her voice that she’s fighting tears. ‘It’s basically the same question, though, isn’t it? How will I feel if I’m told I’m going to die sooner than anyone else and in a more painful way?’ I gasp. Jeff looks pale and sweaty. Katherine doesn’t notice, she’s on a roll. Weeks of frustration are being vented; fear and desperation crash around the car’s leather-and-walnut interior. ‘I mean, what the hell? How does she think I’ll feel? It’s so morbid. I told her.’

  ‘What did you tell her?’ Jeff asks carefully.

  ‘I told her that, the way I look at it, before I take the test I don’t know anything for certain so, in effect, I don’t have the gene, I’m not going to die. Once I take the test I limit the possibilities. There are just two outcomes. I might not have it. Whoop, whoop, great. Panic over. As you were. Or, I do have the gene. Then what? What?’ I look at her through the car mirror. She’s glaring at me now. Furious. I hold her gaze, although it’s painful to do so. I can’t help her. That’s got to be the worst thing a parent ever has to deal with: our ineffectuality, our limits. ‘Because we all know the craziest thing about all of this. If I do have the gene, they can’t do anything about it. Can they? What’s that supposed to mean? I’m just waiting to die, then, right? A horrible, slow death.’

  Abruptly, I have some insight. She said the sessions were fine. I’ve asked her every week. I get the same answer. ‘Fine.’ I wanted to believe her.

  ‘She’s always asking, “How are things going at school?” “Do you have friends you can talk to?” “How do you feel?”’ Katherine is repeating the questions in an annoying, squeaky voice. I’m pretty sure Betty Lopez does not speak in this particular tone, but I get the point. ‘“Do you feel isolated? Misunderstood?” “I realise it must be very difficult articulating your feelings about this situation.” And it was that. The smug understatement. The certainty that she’d seen it all before and – however tragic this situation with the mutated gene is for me – she has the power to help me through it because there is procedure and precedent. “Isolated”? “Misunderstood”? She realises it must be “very difficult”.’ I can hear the exasperation and incredulity in Katherine’s voice ringing out loud and clear like a church bell. ‘I’m standing on a volcano! She, like most adults, realises nothing. Knows nothing. And I wanted to point that out to her.’ Katherine’s breathing is fast, frenzied. ‘So I dropped the bombshell about the swap. It was just to get her to shut the fuck up. I’m sorry, Mum, I know you wanted to keep it a secret.’

  ‘Pull over, Jeff!’

  ‘I can’t, there isn’t a parking spot.’

  ‘We’re only going five miles per hour anyway. Just stop!’ I grab at the door and start to open it, so he does as I ask.

  I jump out of the car, even though it’s dangerous to do so. I don’t care. I’m sick of following the rules. I fling open the back door and climb in next to Katherine. ‘You have nothing to be sorry about, do you hear me? Nothing.’ I hold her face in my hands. Stare into her eyes, drink her up. She falls into my arms and sobs. I hold her very tight as her tears run down my neck. The heat from her face burns into my skin. I hold her and stroke her hair. I kiss her head. I stand with her on the volcano.

  But I don’t have any answers.

  23

  The waiting room is devoid of colour. It’s like everything had to pass through a bleaching process before they let it in here. I suspect the look they were going for was tasteful, or at least inoffensive; they’ve achieved bland. Cream-coloured walls, cream chairs and cream tiles on the floor. Even the paintings are cream. I’m sure I’m almost invisible, as the colour drains from my cheeks the minute we walk through the door. I’m nervously tapping my foot and chewing my lip, an embodiment of anxiety. I remember Jeff’s warning and force my mouth to turn upwards. I suspect I achieve a grimace rather than a grin. I not
ice he’s wearing a tie. The last time he wore one was at his mother’s funeral. His effort terrifies me.

  The receptionist nods politely when we blurt out our excuses about the traffic and ushers us through to the consultation room as quickly as she can. Betty Lopez is not as understanding. She flicks a quick and unnecessary glance at the clock on the wall and then back again, at our red, blotchy faces.

  ‘Do have a seat,’ she instructs. Without making the smallest attempt at small talk or to establish any sort of rapport, she begins. ‘So.’ Betty holds open her arms expansively, invitingly, like a preacher. ‘How are things?’ I would have thought that Katherine’s red eyes and slouch told her all she needed to know.

  ‘Fine,’ Katherine and I mutter.

  At the same time as Jeff says, ‘We’re rather hoping you can tell us.’

  Betty looks a bit exasperated by his comment but she manages to force out a polite smile.

  ‘That’s not exactly how counselling works. But I can tell you that Katherine and I have made great progress now she’s put me in the picture on all the particulars surrounding this precise case.’ She pauses and, like a fifties schoolteacher in a film, looks over her glasses at Jeff and me. I realise she’s trying to reprimand us for misleading her and, in the past, I might have been chastised. Now, I don’t give a damn. We’re doing the best we can. ‘Naturally, the counselling has taken quite a different turn since I’ve come to fully understand the complexities. We’ve placed less emphasis on preparing for the mutated-gene test and more emphasis on dealing with Katherine’s feelings about her new family.’

  I can’t stop myself making a strange sound, something between a huff and a protest. I fold my arms across my chest. Betty Lopez looks at me, not without sympathy, then turns to Katherine. She has a pencil and a notebook in her hand. So does Jeff. He always takes the notes at parents’ night and such; I’m usually too giddy on praise to concentrate. Obviously, it’s a very different vibe now. He says he wants to make notes about the answers to any questions he may have.

  ‘So you are seeing the Trubys regularly now?’

  ‘Quite regularly,’ mumbles Katherine. She looks exhausted. Crying as hard as she did in the car must have leached all her energy.

  ‘With or without your parents?’ Betty points to Jeff and me. I don’t really like the way she does that, as though Katherine might not know who she’s referring to when she says ‘parents’, as though there might be some uncertainty. It sort of drives a wedge between us. She doesn’t need to do that.

  ‘Both.’

  ‘Are they structured, timetabled visits?’

  Katherine looks uncomfortable and fakes boredom, the default setting for teenagers who are embarrassed, hurt or confused. I jump in and answer for her. ‘It’s more that one meet-up sort of leads to the next, then another occurs. Now, there have been quite a few.’

  ‘Let Katherine answer if you can, Alison.’

  Katherine dutifully picks up the mantle. ‘Tom arranges them mostly, and Mum no longer puts up any real resistance.’

  ‘Were you resistant to Katherine bonding with her birth family?’ Betty pops her pencil smartly in her mouth, indicating that she isn’t going to interrupt me, she wants me to talk now.

  ‘Well, a bit, at first. Hesitant, rather than resistant.’

  ‘Cautious,’ adds Jeff supportively. As we both want to come across as reasonable and balanced, revealing my initial reaction – wanting to run away with everything we could carry, emigrate overseas so that they’d never find us – might not achieve that.

  ‘As long as I’ve done my homework and there’s no lacrosse, she lets him drop by or I pop out. She likes to come along, though, when she can.’

  ‘Is that out of a sense of concern? Do you want to keep tabs on them?’ Again Betty fixes her beady eyes on me. I think I preferred it when she only wanted to talk to Katherine, after all.

  ‘No. I enjoy his company.’ I feel Jeff’s glance slide across the floor between us and then up to challenge me. I turn to him, confused. I thought I was supposed to appear reasonable.

  ‘And what do you do together?’

  ‘Often we take Mozart for a walk, or have a meal,’ Katherine says. She loves spending time with Mozart. I do regret not buying her a dog myself; it’s the only thing I’ve ever denied her, really. She has about a million photos of him in her phone; pictures of him slinking out of his basket, nuzzling her knees, running in the park, licking her hand. Besides pizza, we have eaten burgers, tacos and noodles together. I’m keeping track. Tom suggests something different every time. He’s fun. I know I am not fun. I’m polite and proper. Katherine says I always make far too much of an effort when he eats at ours; I put out napkins, decant the ketchup and, apparently, that’s overdoing it. We had a fight about the candelabra. I did remove it in the end. I know she liked the fact that the times we went to theirs, Tom just rooted around the fridge and sort of threw a meal together. Casually. Confidently. ‘We’ve played cards – you know, we just hang out,’ explains Katherine. ‘There has been talk of visiting a theme park as a big group but we haven’t set a date yet, and Mum suggested we all pop into London and have a walk along the South Bank, perhaps visit Tate Modern or the Globe, but Tom said it wasn’t Olivia’s thing. I imagine she vetoed the suggestion with one effective sneer.’

  ‘And how is your relationship with Olivia, Katherine?’ I’m beginning to understand why all Katherine ever says to me on the journey home is ‘fine’. This grilling is exhausting.

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Does Olivia join in the family excursions?’

  ‘Not really.’

  Betty turns her focus on Jeff and me. ‘We probably ought to get you both some counselling, too. Do you two have a relationship with your birth daughter?’

  ‘We invite her to everything,’ I mutter defensively.

  ‘But she doesn’t join in,’ admits Jeff.

  ‘None of the kids do as much stuff with us as I had hoped,’ says Katherine carefully.

  ‘Go on.’

  Katherine lets out a deep breath. ‘The meet-ups haven’t been exactly as I imagined.’ I force myself to keep my eyes to the front. Maybe she always talks this much in Betty’s sessions, or maybe her howling in the car has lowered her defences and she hasn’t the energy to hold up the barriers: either way, this is news to me. ‘The truth is, after the initial flurry of excitement – if that’s the right word; certainly, interest – I haven’t seen as much as I imagined I might have of my siblings. Most of the time, it’s now me and three parents.’ She doesn’t need to say it: the thought bubble above her head reads, ‘As if the undivided attention of two wasn’t enough!’ ‘Not that Dad always comes along. Turns out he really is allergic to dogs; I’d always thought that was just something Mum made up as an excuse for us not getting one. If Tom brings along Mozart, Dad tends to stay at home.’ Again, I feel Jeff’s eyes burn into me.

  ‘Well, Dad is at the library a lot. He’s writing,’ I add.

  Betty ignores my interruption and continues to direct her questions to Katherine. ‘And your siblings?’

  ‘I’ve seen Amy five times in total, Callum and Olivia three each.’ She’s keeping count?

  ‘Why don’t the other children come along more regularly?’

  ‘Tom is always offering up excuses for them, and they all make total sense, but I had kind of been looking forward to seeing them a lot.’

  ‘Well, I suppose we ought to be grateful that Tom’s carving time out especially for you,’ I say. ‘He’s a single parent with three children. It’s quite an ask.’

  ‘Not that I did ask for any of this,’ mumbles Katherine.

  ‘Well, no.’

  Not sidetracked by my teen’s clever comebacks, Betty asks, ‘What sort of excuses do they make?’

  ‘Well, Callum has a girlfriend and she seems to keep him pretty occupied, plus, he has to train hard for his ice-hockey club, which I totally get. Olivia doesn’t have a sport, but we all know she has a boyfriend,
not that she’s introduced him officially. Tom and I laugh about that. I think he thinks it’s a bit immature of her to try to keep her boyfriend a secret, but he’s not pushing it, he’s allowing her to do things in her own time. He respects his kids that way.’ She doesn’t have to add that I would not be so cool. Neither of us can imagine me allowing her to hang out with some boy I hadn’t vetted.

  ‘Would you like to be closer to Olivia?’ Katherine tilts her head to one side: possibly a yes; maybe a no. A teen gesture that’s refusing to commit. When they are together I’ve noticed that Katherine and Olivia steal sneaky glances at one another. Something a bit like hostility. Certainly, curiosity. Studying each other as you might study an insect under a microscope. I guess they are trying to work one another out. They don’t talk to each other, because what is there to say? Olivia has lived Katherine’s life and Katherine’s lived hers. Pardon the parlance, but it’s totally fucked up. Who has cheated whom?

  ‘Amy spends a lot of time in London with her grandfather. Not Tom’s dad. Sadly, his parents live in Spain.’

  ‘Sadly, because you’d like to get to know them?’ asks Betty.

  ‘Maybe. More that I really feel for him. He’s very alone. It’s quite tragic.’ I’m deeply impressed with my daughter’s compassion. Even with all she has on her plate, she manages to see things from others’ points of view. ‘We saw a bit more of Amy to start with, and that was nice but this last couple of weeks she hasn’t been around.’ It’s a shame, but totally understandable. Little children like spending time with their old relatives. I was very close to my grandmother and, naturally, Tom needs help with childcare now and again.

  ‘Do these grandparents know about the swap?’ My resentment that Betty Lopez is clambering all over our business shifts a little. It’s a good question, not one I’ve thought to ask myself. Katherine turns pink. The shade and spot of the blush (very high up on her cheekbones) and the way she purses her lips ever so slightly shows she’s defensive and hurt.