“We cashed out and opened this shop,” Sandeep finished. “We’re active people, and we didn’t want to sit around in our retirement. We sensed a need and figured we were just the right people to fill it.”
“So then they got me,” Radha said. “They were in a good position.”
Micki drew Radha to her and squeezed. She showed affection in a way I admired, impulsively and without forethought. “We began fostering Radha about a year ago. Now, we’re trying out to be her parents.”
“Trying out?” Kylie asked, puzzled. “Like I did when I tried out for my school play?”
“Very similar process,” Sandeep said. “Radha must decide if she likes us enough.”
“I like you plenty,” Radha said, and I could tell she meant it.
“We’re proving to her that we’ve got what it takes,” Micki said. “To Radha and the state.”
“So they can adopt me,” Radha said.
Sandeep’s smile tensed. “We hope,” he said. “If it all works out.”
Anyone could see Radha loved her prospective parents. But they were older—weren’t there rules about that? I silently sent a good thought out into the universe—please make it work out for them.
Heather gave me a questioning look. We needed to get home. It was getting late, and Kylie had school the next morning. My feet wouldn’t move, though.
“Mom,” Kylie said, probably picking up on my hesitation, “we should probably go. Grandma’s gonna be waiting for us.”
At the mention of my mom, guilt struck hard, disorienting me for a moment. I heard her voice loud and clear. What are you doing here? What did you learn that mattered?
“We do need to get going,” I said quickly. “Thank you for having us.”
“No!” Micki caught herself and smiled. “I mean, you can stay for a while longer, can’t you?”
“This is a difficult situation,” Sandy said, placing a hand on his wife’s shoulder. “Today we don’t have to think about anything but how wonderful it is to discover new friends.”
“She’s not new,” Aunt Micki said. “I never forgot.”
“How do you know my mom again?” Kylie said, looking skeptical.
“I’d like to buy the lipstick,” Bernie interrupted. “Before I get any older.”
“I’ll take care of it, Mom,” Radha said. She’d been watching her foster mother very closely.
Radha took care of Bernie’s purchase, while Sandy commandeered the conversation, telling a funny story about working at the haunted house.
“Can we go sometime?” Kylie said, apparently feeling very brave. She still closed her eyes during scary movies.
“Sure,” I said, uneasily. I should have said maybe. Why did I open my mouth without thinking? Maybe I wasn’t thinking anything through. Is that what was happening here? Was I falling into these people’s lives without weighing the consequences? I glanced at Heather, who’d begun to chat with Micki about her clientele, at Sandy, who put his fake teeth back in to draw a laugh from Kylie. I imagined my mom sitting here, her dry humor adding a wonderful element to the group. Could that ever happen? My gut was speaking to me loud and clear—the Patels were good people. The thing was, this was way more complicated than developing friendships. It was reinventing a family.
“We’re having an event next weekend,” Micki announced. “A fashion show. I’d love it if you came.”
She looked so eager, so vulnerable. “Maybe,” I said.
“That sounds really fun,” Kylie said, excited. “I live for fashion! Can we go, Mom? Please?”
A group of middle-aged women walked into the store, laughing and generally whooping it up. Micki looked torn—she wanted to talk more, but then she needed to attend to her customers. “I’ll be with you in a moment,” she called out, and the women spread out over the shop, enthusiasm lighting their faces.
“You will come back, won’t you?” Micki said to me. “Maybe you could help with hair and makeup at the show. We always need more hands.”
“Mooooom,” Kylie whined. “This is my dream. Pleeeaaase?”
A warning roared through my subconscious. I ignored it. “Okay.”
Sandy held out his hand. “It was wonderful to meet you.”
Micki leaned over the coffee table, grabbing my shoulders. “Sandy, she gets a hug.”
My heart threatened to melt just as fast as the chocolate Kiss. There was a brief hugfest, Sandy and Micki squeezing me, Kylie, and Heather. Radha joined in, dragging Bernie with her, and then the whole group walked us to the door.
“Could you bring Bernie home?” Micki asked as we shared contact info and said our final goodbyes. “She doesn’t live far, and it would save her the car fare.”
“Be happy to,” I said as Bernie eyed me warily. Her lipstick had smeared, a red streak bisecting her cheek.
We settled Bernie into the back seat next to Kylie. After giving us her address, she was contemplative on the drive home, quietly humming what I was pretty sure was “Fly Me to the Moon.”
“Have you been married before, Bernie?” Heather asked.
Probably not the most tactful question, but I hadn’t offered any better. I glanced at the older woman in the rearview mirror, interested in her answer.
“No,” Bernie said dreamily. She began singing softly, “When I find my love, it will last forever,” garbling the lyrics a bit.
“That’s nice,” Heather said, because . . . What could she say? At Bernie’s age, forever generally meant into the great beyond sooner rather than later.
I stopped in front of a modest ranch home, the low brick building dwarfed by its oversized, overstuffed neighbors. Heather jumped out to help Bernie to the door.
“Her fiancé’s name is Reggie,” Heather said when she got back into the car. “And they don’t plan on having any children, in case you were wondering.”
CHAPTER 6
After dropping Heather off, I silently suffered the aftershocks of meeting Micki. I gripped the wheel, struggling to pay attention, my mind wandering everywhere but on the road in front of me. Had I really agreed to meeting up with her again? Did I know what the hell I was doing?
I was searching. Aunt Micki said my mother had been a sickly person. I needed to know more about that. In fact, I had a responsibility to Kylie to find out more.
That seemed like the right thing to do, so why did I feel so hollow?
My mother was why. I was going to keep this secret from her. Maybe I could meet up with Micki just once or twice more, get all my questions answered, and then fade back into my real life. I’d send her a Christmas card, and maybe call her every so often.
Satisfied, I walked into the kitchen fully confident that looking her in the eye wouldn’t be a problem. She sat at our small round table, having coffee.
With Matt.
Gone was the animosity my mother had shown him only days earlier. The two of them were hunched over a number of catalogs spread neatly across the table, staring at them with intense scrutiny.
“Daddy!”
Matt held his arms out, and Kylie ran right into them.
“How’re you feeling, munchkin?”
“Fine,” she said, nuzzling into his shoulder. “Maybe my elbows hurt a little.”
“Maybe it’s your funny bone,” he said, tickling her. Kylie let loose with a completely unrestrained giggle.
If someone took a photo of this scene, in all its Norman Rockwell–esque glory, the story it would tell would be one of such sweet familial harmony it would be the photo on Facebook you hate-like because it’s so perfect, it brings up instant feelings of inadequacy. I couldn’t stand it.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, so bluntly my mom looked up and frowned.
“Matt was on a run,” my mom said, as though that should explain everything.
“And I happened to be close by, so I stopped in,” Matt said. “Sophie told me about the remodel she’s doing on Kylie’s room. She’s got some great ideas, but she needs help with the heav
y lifting.” He smiled at Kylie. “Your bedroom is going to look fantastic! We’re going to take that room down to the studs and completely start over.”
I glanced at my mother, trying to get a read on her. Why was she letting Matt help with this? Her eyes gave nothing away. My mother could out-poker-face Lady Gaga.
Excited, Kylie began flipping through the catalogs, oohing and aahing over linens and bookshelves and funky rugs.
Kylie slept in what had previously been my mom’s office. We’d moved the ancient computer out and put pink-and-white-striped sheets on the bed. I hadn’t done much else because our living here was supposed to be temporary. My mother’s eagerness to suit that room to Kylie’s personality told me she wanted it to be permanent. My heart twinged when I realized Matt probably wanted the same thing. “Her room is fine as it is,” I said, not bothering to hide the edge in my voice. “I don’t see why this is necessary.”
“Mom, please!” Kylie was very close to whining.
“It won’t cost that much,” Matt explained with a hint of embarrassment. “Your mom and I found some stuff on the IKEA site.” He ruffled Kylie’s hair. “I figure if I can get through a master’s program, there’s a good chance I can figure out directions for a harfenurgengurgen bookcase.”
“That’s not a word,” Kylie said, laughing.
“Dads are allowed to make up two words per year,” Matt said, feigning seriousness. “Didn’t you know that?”
As Kylie and Matt had their moment, my mom turned to me. “It could be a family project,” she said with a shrug.
“Are you sure you want all of our help?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. Since when was Matt considered a member of the family again?
“If you can paint highlights on someone’s head, you can paint a few walls and some trim,” Mom said, brushing off my intent. “We can all go to the paint store to pick out a color.”
“No pink,” Kylie said definitively. “And no yellow. Maybe blue or purple.”
My mom smirked at her. “I can live with those colors.”
“This will be good practice for when we sell,” Matt said, turning to me. “If we want top dollar, we’re going to have to do a major overhaul.”
“Sell the house?” It hadn’t occurred to me that this was a possibility. Sure, I’d been the one to move out, but we came to that decision together. My mom lived closer to Kylie’s school, and she’d be around to help me out when I needed it. Matt didn’t have any family close by, and it didn’t make financial sense for him to get an apartment. Also, if I was being honest with myself, when Matt and I were constantly bickering, I welcomed the comfort of my mom’s home. Unchanging and predictable, my mother made the earth beneath my feet feel steady. And though she’d been an overworked single mom, she managed to infuse her quiet version of warmth and love in every part of her house—it was the scent of my childhood, and it persisted, just as she had.
But my house with Matt offered another kind of comfort. If we still owned it together, it was something that bound us, a lesser vow than the one we took at church, but a vow all the same. I wasn’t ready to renounce it. Not yet, anyway.
“Can I help them after school, Mom?” Kylie asked, excited. “I want to learn to decorate a room. It’s like HGTV.”
My mom beamed. “It’ll be a good experience for her.”
“Agreed,” Matt said. “Though we might have to be a little flexible with our time. That’s okay with you, right, Ally?”
“What?” They’d continued talking, but my brain was still spinning from the idea of selling my house, not to mention meeting Micki Patel, and I was a step behind everyone else. “What do you want to do?”
“Kylie wants to help,” Matt explained. “You don’t mind if I’m here on your days, right?”
Mom put her coffee down and watched as I struggled for the right response. It wasn’t a big deal—just a couple of hours after school. Why did it feel like I was giving in to something bigger than I realized? The three of them gazed at me, expectant.
“She can help as long as she doesn’t have a doctor’s appointment,” I said, regretting my decision before I even knew why. “And homework takes priority.”
Matt’s expression soured slightly. “I’m sure we can work around all of that.”
Mom refocused her attention on the papers in front of her and a sketch I’d just noticed, done in Matt’s hand. It was drawn on a notepad advertising a local real estate agent. Had he talked to someone about selling already? Who was I kidding? Of course he had. Matt would sell our small bungalow, and the house that I’d infused with my warmth and my love would belong to someone else. Some other family.
“I’m tired,” I said. “It’s been a long day, and I need to lie down for a while.”
“It’s Sunday,” Matt said. “The salon is closed. What knocked you out?”
“I had a house call.”
Sharp-eyed and suspicious, Matt studied me closely. “Where? You never make house calls.”
I could feel the blood in me rising, its power pounding from my toes to the tips of my ears. It pushed aside all guilt and concern and need for approval. I stepped around my mom, opened the fridge, and grabbed a beer. “I was out, and now I’m home,” I said, and before anyone could question me further, I picked up my bag and walked into the living room. When I got there, I realized how small the house was. I could go to my room like I’d intended, or the garage. Hiding out in my room seemed embarrassingly childish. Garage it was.
I knew it was only a matter of time before someone would come looking for me, but in the meantime I sat at my mom’s workbench and fired up my laptop. I’d stopped googling Kylie’s every symptom a long time ago—it only caused worry and anguish—and instead had picked up the habit of going onto her MyChart and obsessing over what she didn’t have.
No lupus.
No thyroid disorders.
No indication of leukemia or other cancers.
No diabetes.
No problems with her kidneys or liver.
I lived in that bubble of information for a moment, ignoring the ANA test—an inflammation marker—that showed something was going on, and it didn’t care if we stuck a label on it or not.
The last doctor had diagnosed Kylie with Sjogren’s syndrome. Though her symptoms didn’t coincide exactly with that inflammatory disease, it was the closest he could come. “Close only counts in horse races,” my mom said, and I had to agree with her. The doctor focused on treating symptoms individually, but that felt like playing a game of Whac-A-Mole—we’d calm one symptom, only to have another pop up. I couldn’t accept that this was the way it had to be. Which had led me to Dr. Indigo.
I logged into Kylie’s health portal with the Integrative Spiritual, Health, and Wellness Center.
There was a message from Dr. Indigo.
Kylie and Ally—Kylie’s IgE was high but still fine for treating her peanut allergy. The DNA info showed genes associated with a higher risk for chronic inflammation, as well as a stronger susceptibility to OCD, anxiety, depression, and celiac disease. Take care, Dr. Lucinda Indigo.
That was it? We had another appointment on Wednesday, and though I had my reservations, I wasn’t going to cancel. I would insist on going over Kylie’s blood work and health data in greater detail. Dr. Indigo could meditate with Kylie until they both reached nirvana, but that could come afterward.
I heard leaves crunch under someone’s shoes. My brief moment of peace—if I could even call it that—was about to be disrupted.
“Can we talk?”
Matt stood in the open doorway. He looked more at ease in running shorts and an old T-shirt, his hair rumpled, a day of stubble already scruffing his chin. This was the Matt I knew.
“Fine,” I said, closing my laptop. I glanced next to me on the bench, and Matt took the hint and sat. I didn’t want him looming over me.
“Sophie’s worried about you,” he said.
“Why?”
“She doesn’t exactly know. She just know
s she should be worried.”
“She should save her worry for Kylie.”
“Kylie said her elbows hurt today,” Matt said. “Her elbows? Really?”
“Joint pain. I rubbed some aloe vera on them. Dr. Indigo suggested it. I’m trying to lay off the ibuprofen.”
“I suppose that’s a good move if it actually works.”
I could hear the skepticism in his voice. Justified or not, it rankled. “Well, I don’t want her getting an ulcer on top of everything else.”
“I wasn’t judging.”
“What would you call it then?”
“Someone has to question things. You accept everything, Ally. You want to find a cure too badly to say no, or at least take a step back.”
“I don’t think we should be taking any steps backward.”
Matt sighed. “That’s not what I meant, but okay. We’ve got other things to talk about.”
“Like?”
“Well, I’m sorry, for one. I shouldn’t have questioned you about where you were today.”
An apology from Matt. I glanced down, wondering if the earth might just swallow me up. Nothing happened, but the garage floor did need sweeping.
“I took Kylie to meet my biological aunt today,” I said, figuring it was best to be direct. “We got invited to come back next Sunday, and I think we’re going to go. I didn’t want to bring Kylie today, but the whole thing got away from me.”
“Seriously? Oh, Ally. What are you getting into?”
“I had questions I wanted answered. I figured I had a right. I told Kylie she was a client.”
Matt went quiet for a moment, and then said, “So you lied about it. That seems a lot bigger than my white lie.”
“I did lie. I know that makes me a hypocrite. You don’t have to say it.”
“Okay, I won’t then. But I don’t have a good feeling about this. You don’t know these people.”
“I met with them once, and I’ll probably see them one more time. I have a few more questions. After that, I won’t go back again.”
Matt threw me a skeptical glance. “Next Sunday is mine. I was hoping to get a start on that room. I’m not sure we should start trading days so much. It shouldn’t work this way.”
The Other Family Page 8