“I know it must have been scary to tell me the truth,” Encarnación said. “I’m not upset you didn’t. But I don’t want this discussion to be about Enrique. I don’t think it’s appropriate for you and Enrique to be in a romantic relationship. He knows that. You now know that. And that’s the end of that discussion. I’m sure your parents agree.”
“Of course we agree,” Baba said. “Of course we agree. He’s her brother.”
“Technically not,” Encarnación corrected. “He is Fabio’s son. He and Daria are not related by blood. But still, I don’t think it’s right for them to be involved. It’s emotionally complicated, and our son is emotionally complicated enough as it is . . .”
“I thought he wasn’t your son,” Sheila said, itching for combat.
“I didn’t give birth to him,” Encarnación said. “But he is still my son. You of all people should understand that.”
Sheila’s lips tightened. Anxious to busy herself, Sheila grabbed an enchilada and forked a small bite into her mouth. She swallowed it and said, “Not bad.”
“Are you a connoisseur of enchiladas?” Encarnación asked.
“Daria had a Mexican nanny,” Sheila said, matter-of-fact, and I cringed a little inside.
“I see,” Encarnación said. “I’m sure you raised her to believe that Mexicans make the very best hired help.”
“Do you think I’m a horrible person?” Sheila asked, defiant.
“No.” Encarnación sighed. “Just a slightly oblivious one.”
I sat on the sofa listening to the two of them trade insults back and forth, and my mind started to go fuzzy, like it was filled with cotton candy. I couldn’t hear the specifics of what they were saying anymore, just echoes. Sheila accused Encarnación of judging her, and Encarnación accused Sheila of the same. Their voices became more acute as the battle raged on, until finally, my mind cleared and I heard Sheila announce, “I’ve had enough of this. I came here because I thought it would bring my daughter peace, but clearly it won’t do any such thing.”
Sheila glared at my father, silently urging him to follow her as she headed to the door. But before she could reach the threshold, I yelled, “Enough!”
All eyes were on me. I stood up tall and pushed my shoulders back, puffing my chest out. I thought that by assuming a powerful pose, I would feel confident. But I didn’t. I had no idea what I was about to say, but I knew I had to say something.
“This is not about you,” I said quietly, to nobody in particular. “This is about me. This is my moment.” Now I turned to Sheila, addressing her directly. “This is my life.”
“I know that, Daria,” Sheila said. “But . . .”
“Stop talking, Sheila,” I begged. “Stop making excuses. Why can’t you just focus on me for a little while? Why is it so hard for you to just ask me how I’m feeling? Why is it impossible for you to ask me what I want, what I need, who I am?”
Sheila was stunned into silence. Baba stood up and positioned himself between us. He placed a hand on each of our shoulders, careful not to pick a side. “Go ahead, Sheila,” he said. “Ask her.”
Sheila whispered, “How are you feeling?”
I’d wanted her to ask the question, and yet I couldn’t bring myself to answer.
“What do you need?” Sheila asked, each word struggling to escape her lips, as if she were speaking a foreign language.
I took a deep breath and then unleashed my needs. “I need you to stop trying to control who I am, and what I become. Stop making my life all about you. And just sit down and listen to Encarnación without fighting, without arguing. Just listen. I want to know everything.”
Sheila finally nodded and sat back down. Baba gave my shoulder a squeeze and sat down next to Sheila, who gently said, “I’m listening now.”
I was the only one left standing, and all eyes were on me. I turned to Encarnación. “I want to know everything,” I said. “I want to know where I was born, and when I was adopted, and how it happened, and who my birth father is.”
Encarnación looked to Sheila and Baba. “Do you want to start, or should I?” she asked.
“Go ahead,” Baba said. “Go ahead. The story starts with you.”
Encarnación adjusted herself into a comfortable position on the sofa. “So,” she said, “I was working in a clothing factory.”
“Local,” I said, and she nodded. “You know, that’s how I found you,” I continued. “I Googled you and found a picture of you in the paper at the factory, so I went there and got your address from the head of the company.”
“Wow,” Baba said, impressed. “That’s very resourceful, aziz.”
“So you met Seth Nijensen?” Encarnación asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “He gave me your address.”
“Well,” Encarnación said. “Then you’ve met your biological father.”
The world stopped for a moment. It felt like everyone in the room disappeared, and I was alone. If Seth Nijensen was my biological father, wouldn’t I have felt something when I met him? Wouldn’t I have looked into his eyes and felt some connection?
Then my thoughts turned to Baba, and how it must have felt for him to hear another man referred to as my father. A pain in my chest seized me. The thought of Baba doubting his role in my life hurt me that much. I tried to read Baba’s face for clues to his thoughts. He was biting his lip again. Perhaps this posed a new challenge for him. Perhaps he imagined my biological father was bound to be dead, or in prison, or in Mexico. Now here was a new twist: my biological father was alive, right down the street, and a CEO of a major company.
Once I got over trying to read Baba’s mood, I let my own mind reel. It replayed the moment I’d met Seth, trying hard to find meaning in the encounter, to give significance to his handshake, to locate the deep pool of expression behind his horn-rimmed glasses. And then I wondered aloud, “Wait, so I’m Jewish?”
“Half,” Encarnación said.
“Not technically,” Sheila said. “Jewishness is passed on through the mother.” She turned to Encarnación and added, “Iran had a vibrant Jewish community before the revolution. Most Persians in Los Angeles are Jewish, although our family is agnostic.”
“You don’t say,” Encarnación said sarcastically.
“I’m sorry,” Sheila said. “I’m listening. Only listening.” And she pretended to zip her lips up, a gesture I had never seen her use before.
“Does he know?” I asked. “I mean, I went to his office and told him I was your biological daughter. Did he know who I was?”
Encarnación leaned forward, taking my hand in hers. “I don’t think so.”
But I knew he suspected it. Why else would he have helped me? Why else would he have gifted me clothes, as if that would make up for his actions sixteen years ago?
“Did you love him?” I asked.
“I thought I did.”
“Did you tell him about me?”
Now she took a big breath, like she was going to need extra oxygen to get through this. “I was very young when you were born. Like many young people, I confused infatuation with love. Seth was like no one else I had ever met. He was a gringo who spoke Spanish like a Mexican, who knew how to make perfect mole sauce, who seemed to believe more than anyone I had ever met in equality. Back then, Local wasn’t the big company it is now.”
I saw Baba flinch again. My biological father’s success really seemed to bother him.
“It was only a dream,” Encarnación continued. “And I believed in the dream. So when he first asked me out, I couldn’t believe my luck. I thought my life was set. I thought I had been chosen. We spent a lot of time together outside of the factory. He was so interested in Mexican culture. I taught him my secret recipes, and read him my favorite Mexican poetry, and played him my favorite Mexican singers.”
“Chavela Vargas?” I asked, somehow desperate to prove my own street cred.
“Yes,” she said. “Among others. And in turn, he exposed me to his favorite things. H
e gave me books by Philip Roth and Norman Mailer and John Updike. And he played me Tom Waits and Lou Reed and Nick Cave and Leonard Cohen. He was teaching me, and I was teaching him.” She smiled at the memory. “I suppose I have him to thank for my life in many ways. He was such a dreamer, and he made me remember my own dreams. He helped me to see that I wanted to be a teacher. I worshipped him, so you can imagine how happy I was when I realized I was pregnant. I thought we would be a family.”
Sheila swung her left leg over her right, the small motion drawing all our attention momentarily. Sheila had a hard time with emotional conversations, and I could only imagine how hard this one was for her to hear. She was listening, though. She remained quiet. And her silence spoke volumes.
“I didn’t want to tell him at the office,” Encarnación continued. “I wanted the moment to be special. So I cooked dinner for him. Carne asada, platanos, flan, the works. I remember it so well. Some days you forget, and others are engraved in your memory forever, no matter how hard you try to forget them. And I wanted to forget that day. I have tried to forget it. And maybe some days, I’ve succeeded in pushing that memory back. Fabio helped, and Enrique helped. They gave me the family I wanted long ago.”
Sheila’s face softened. I could see her wanting to comfort Encarnación, but she didn’t.
“But wait,” I said. “You skipped over so much. You told him you were pregnant, so he obviously knows about me.”
“Yes and no,” she said. She gulped hard. “That night, I discovered that sometimes the most dynamic, inspiring, loving people can let you down. He didn’t want a child. Certainly not with me. He already had a child, and it was his company. So he wrote me a check, and I agreed to get an abortion. I couldn’t go back to work after that. It was the last time I saw him. I never told him I kept you.”
There was a long silence in the room. We all wanted to honor Encarnación’s painful memory. Finally, Baba said, “This man is dishonorable.”
To my surprise, I felt a desire to defend Seth. He was my biological father, after all, and if it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t even exist.
“No,” Encarnación said. “It’s not that simple. He didn’t want to bring a child into the world, but that doesn’t make him a bad person. I know that now. He is still all of those things that made me care for him. Passionate, ambitious. He dreams big. I think you do too, Daria.”
“Well, I’d still like to punch him in the face,” Baba said. These were the most aggressive words I had ever heard him speak. I backed away from him a little. Baba was like my teddy bear, my soft blanket. He wasn’t supposed to sound this bitter.
“We can’t judge a person by an isolated action,” Encarnación said to Baba. “What if you and your wife were judged solely on your decision to keep this secret from your daughter? Wouldn’t that reduce you to far less than who you are?”
“I suppose . . . ,” Baba said, drifting off into thought.
“I should’ve told Seth about my decision,” Encarnación said. “I thought about getting in touch with him many times through the years. But the more time passed, the harder it became. Now I think it’s up to you, Daria, to decide whether you’d like to tell him.”
I nodded. “Did you consider keeping me yourself?” I asked.
Sheila’s legs didn’t swing this time. She froze, awaiting Encarnación’s response.
“No,” Encarnación said. “I knew I couldn’t raise a child on my own. I wasn’t even close to ready. So I contacted an adoption lawyer, and he told me about your parents. They sounded so wonderful. I liked that they already had a son. I liked the idea of you having an older brother. And I liked that even though they weren’t Mexican, they were immigrants. I wanted you to have a culture, with its own sounds and scents and flavors and traditions. I guess you can take over the story from here,” she said, eyeing Sheila.
“Oh,” Sheila said, her restless leg syndrome finally letting up as she sat up tall. “I’m only here to listen.”
“Don’t be so literal,” I said. “I want to hear everything.”
“But you know the rest,” Sheila said. “Lala told you the whole story.”
“Lala is our nanny,” Baba explained.
“So you even outsource your intimacy?” Encarnación asked, not cruelly, but rather as a challenge to Sheila. I think Encarnación could see how much I craved this story, how deeply I longed for the truth.
My mother turned to me, her eyes moist. “I don’t want to talk about the miscarriages, Daria. There were too many of them, and each one was worse. The pain of them was exponential. And then there was . . .” She drifted off, and I knew she was thinking about the stillbirth.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Really. You don’t have to talk about it.”
“I always thought that protecting you from all the ugliness in my life was a gift to you,” she said. “There was so much pain in my life. So much death. So much sadness.” My mother paused, and Encarnación gave her a gentle nod, urging her to go on. “And I didn’t want that for you. But I was wrong. I should have just told you everything. Maybe by trying to protect you, I caused even more sadness.”
I tried to replay my childhood with a different mother, a version of the mother Amir had described to me, who would hole herself up in her room for days at a time, who would wallow in memories of her difficult past, who mourned her father and brother day and night. It was a more honest childhood, and yet a far more painful one as well. And suddenly, I was overtaken with a deep sense of gratitude. It finally hit me how hard they had worked to give me a good life.
“No,” I said. “I had a great childhood.” I took a breath and then said, “I guess maybe things happen when they’re supposed to. I wouldn’t have been ready to process all this as a kid. But I’m ready now. It took me almost sixteen years, I guess.”
“And it took me forty-nine,” Sheila said.
And Baba and I laughed, because of course we knew it really took her fifty-two years. But that’s one secret we wouldn’t have dared reveal.
Once our laughter died down, Encarnación said, “I always felt I made the right decision, Daria, and now that I see what a strong woman you’ve become, I know it with certainty. I guess what I’m saying is, this is the way it was supposed to be. I wasn’t meant to be your mother. But perhaps I was meant to come in your life now. And if that’s what you want, I’m here. Things fall into place in their own way.”
My mother, antsy from having ceded the floor to Encarnación, gently butted in. “The day we got the call about you, I knew everything would fall into place. I’ll never forget it. It was February nineteenth. We waited outside the delivery room for news.”
“Wait, you weren’t in the delivery room?” I asked.
“No,” Sheila said. “I couldn’t . . . I didn’t . . . I wanted not to see you,” she said to Encarnación. “I know it may have seemed cruel, but I didn’t want to remember you.”
“It’s not cruel,” Encarnación said.
“We were in the waiting room, and then we got news that you were born. Eleven eleven a.m. I always thought that was lucky.”
“In the spirit of honesty,” Encarnación said, “there’s something I can tell you now. You were actually born at nine eleven a.m.”
“What?” I asked.
“I wanted to hold you for a little while. Just to look in your eyes, and to explain things to you, and to say I loved you. I knew your parents were waiting, but the doctor let me hold you. He said it wouldn’t hurt anybody.”
“But my birth certificate says eleven eleven a.m.,” I said.
Sheila shrugged. “Oh well, what difference does two hours make?”
“I think the last two hours have made a huge difference,” I said. “Don’t you? I mean, we’re, like, friends with my biological mother now.”
“Do we have to use that word?” Sheila asked.
“Your mother’s right,” Encarnación said. “You shouldn’t think of me as your mother in any way.”
“Well, what s
hould I think of you as?” I asked.
“Just think of me as your . . . as your . . . Encarnación,” she offered.
Sheila smiled. She clearly did not want to share the privilege (and, if I have to be honest, the pain) that comes with her designation as my mother.
“Thank you,” Baba said. I waited for him to say it again, but he didn’t. He must not have felt nervous anymore. And neither was I. Somehow, sitting here with my parents, across from my Encarnación and her husband, eating enchiladas as my nonstepbrother listened from his room, seemed totally natural.
When the conversation between my parents, Encarnación, and Fabio came to its natural end, Sheila and Baba stood up and announced it was getting late. Baba put his arm around me. I was about to ask if I could go up to see Iglesias, but I decided I didn’t need to ask for permission. “I’m going to talk to Iglesias,” I stated. And then, not wanting to appear too defiant, I added, “I hope that’s okay.”
Encarnación invited my parents to stay while Iglesias and I talked upstairs. She even offered them homemade blue corn ice cream. Unsurprisingly, Sheila and Baba rejected the offer. From what I could tell, this was the longest stretch of time they had spent out of their comfort zone since the Iranian Revolution, and I didn’t begrudge them their desire to return to the comfort of home.
“I’ll drop her off,” Encarnación told them. “And don’t worry, the door to his room will be open at all times.”
“Thank you,” Sheila said. “We appreciate it.” And with a half smile, Sheila pulled something wrapped in tissue paper from her purse. “I almost forgot,” she said. “It’s a little gift. It’s nothing, really.”
Encarnación took the gift from Sheila’s hand and unwrapped it. It was an ashtray, hand-painted by Auntie Lida with an image of an Iranian woman, wrapped in a bright blue shawl, holding a pomegranate. “It’s lovely,” Encarnación said.
“My sister, Lida, paints these,” Sheila explained. “It’s from Iran.”
“This was very thoughtful,” Encarnación said. “I’ll bring you a little piece of Mexico next time I come over.”
The Authentics Page 18