On her desk there is a nest and also a rock shaped like an egg, that same white stone color I have. There is a feather. They are all together here.
Her hands hold the roll of paper and she looks at the class through it. Her hands.
The kids all laugh and look back at her.
And she laughs, too.
Her laugh. My laugh.
“Now,” she says. “Let’s take three of these bones and put them on the table and let’s set a plate on them. How strong are a bird’s bones? How many coins can these hollow bones hold?” She stands up. “Let’s find out!”
She comes out from behind her desk. And then I see it. Her belly! She has an enormous stomach and she rubs it as she waddles to the front of the classroom. She is going to have another baby.
I finally find her just as she is about to be someone else’s mother.
I am leaving nature now, she wrote. I have my reasons.
And now I see them. I see everything. I am writing to tell you what I know now. The soul is every part of us. Our present, our past, our future. I saw my soul on those summits, at the horizon, in the branches of the trees.
In there could be the third girl. I could have a sister.
She sets out huge piles of bright copper pennies. The children have all gone to their tables with their paper plates, building birds. “Estimate how many pennies you think this bird can hold,” she says. I see her high forehead—like mine—crinkle up a bit as she watches the children place the plates on the birds’ bones. It’s not just the now that we are living for. We are living for the past and because of it. We are living for the future, too. Our dreams.
“How many do you think?” she asks.
That is also what is to come. All the things we might have been and who we might be.
The children add one coin at a time. Behind her the board says Life Sciences. In her handwriting. I know her grown-up handwriting now.
I watch, too, thunderstruck. One of the pretend birds goes down and the kid says, “Damn,” and stomps his foot.
“Jerome, how many coins did it take? It’s a lot! Hollow bones are still strong bones.”
She walks around the room, touching the corners of tables. I watch her check her watch. “Just a few more minutes, guys!” she says. “Let’s finish up!”
I was sixteen, she wrote, and I let you go.
That is who we are. So many if onlys.
Lost or found. I think, suddenly, of that “Lulu” in the book. Was she ever found? Unwanted or special, chosen. It’s impossible to say. In that room is my first mother. And a sibling, too. That nest on the desk. The rock like an egg. All the feathers. All the butterfly wings. Here we are, all of us. Downed birds. And here we are, still, all of us flying.
The students are putting away their materials and packing up for the day. They concentrate hard as they organize their coins and pretend bones; they smile each time they pass her and she smiles back. Above my head a bell rings, madly, and the students begin to file out, in clumps, alone; they are moving on. And then they are gone. The door is closed again.
I watch as she stands to face the board—Life Sciences—her arms crossed. Then she unfolds, picks up an eraser.
And then I do something that I don’t entirely expect. I make a choice. I choose. I nod at Nadia and she nods back. I turn the handle and then, very softly, I step quietly inside.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to Jen Klonsky, an editorial delight, who helped me wrestle this out of the ether and into a form. Thanks to the wonderful team at Harper Teen and to Jenn Joel, my agent, who really cheered this project on. Big thanks to Joanna Hershon, my first reader, and to Hyatt Bass, Lola Calotychos, Meg Wolitzer, and Nina Revoyr for their ever-helpful early reads. Thank you to Pedro who has been living with this material for a long time. Adoption is big and hard and complicated for everyone involved, and I want to thank the people who helped and supported my family as we went through the long process. Jovi and Andrew I thank here and everywhere.
About the Author
Photo credit Michael Lovett
JENNIFER GILMORE is the author of three novels for adults: The Mothers, Something Red, and Golden Country (a New York Times Notable Book, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award). She teaches writing and literature at Harvard University. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and son. Visit her at www.jennifergilmore.net.
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Books by Jennifer Gilmore
For Teens
We Were Never Here
If Only
For Adults
Golden Country
Something Red
The Mothers
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Copyright
HarperTeen is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
IF ONLY. Copyright © 2018 by Jennifer Gilmore. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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Cover art by SHOUT
Cover design by Jessie Gang
* * *
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018933330
Digital Edition JULY 2018 ISBN: 978-0-06-239365-4
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-239363-0
* * *
1819202122PC/LSCH10987654321
FIRST EDITION
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If Only Page 21