The Road to You

by Piper Lennox

  You’re on your own, I tell myself. This time, it takes only once to accept it.

  By the time I’m cried out, I can feel my heartbeat in both temples, my sinuses raw. I wipe my face with napkins from our on-the-road lunches and bravely chug the only thing in the car, watered-down cola. It’s disgusting, but clears my head.

  I put the car in Drive and check the directions list again. I didn’t think to print the reverse copy, but maybe I can follow it backwards. Getting anywhere but here feels good enough.

  As I pull away from the curb, I see a car coming towards me. It cuts the wheel hard and bounces into the driveway of 1922 East Cedar. The same house I was just at. The wrong one.

  But when I creep the car closer, I see a woman get out. She gathers some groceries from the backseat and rushes inside.

  It could be anyone. I have no reason to pull back up to the curb, one house down this time, and shut the car off. No reason to close my door with a soft click, so no one can hear me, and no reason to slink up to the porch. But I still do.

  I hear screaming. The man I met a few minutes ago is yelling like he’s gone insane, and the woman’s voice is barely audible.

  “...telling everyone in town? Huh?” A pause. “Then how did some girl know your fucking name, tell me that.” The window frame actually rattles as he moves. I hear a slap, then silence, until a door slams.

  I should call the police or something. Clearly, this isn’t a good situation, whoever these people are. Before I can turn back, though, I hear the front door open, while I’m still on the steps.

  “Oh,” a voice says, surprised. I hear her sniff as the door shuts behind her. “Um...can I help you?”

  I turn. The first thing I notice is the pack of cigarettes in her hand, like she’s trying to hide them. The second thing is the red mark on her eye, the earliest stage of a bruise, and that she’s crying.

  Then, finally, I notice that Shepherd was right. She looks a lot like me.

  “You’re Tillie?” I ask. Somehow, I know to whisper.

  She glances behind her at the house. We hear the slamming of drawers and furniture, near the back. “Who are you?” The way she says it is different from how he asked: not at all suspicious, but sweet, genuine.

  “My name is Lila,” I answer, then realize my mistake. “But it...it used to be Kathryn.”

  Part Two

  Fourteen

  Lila

  I’d prepared myself for as many outcomes as possible.

  At the adoption agency, they’d given me handfuls of pamphlets that backed up what I found online: when it came to birth families, you never knew how people would react. Some adoptees got the Hollywood reunion, full of tears and smiles and instant connection. Some were unlucky, and received cruel or distant welcomes—if they got a response at all. A lot of bio parents, it seemed, wanted to pretend they’d never had a child to begin with.

  The letter in my file made the first scenario more likely, but I accepted that anything could happen. At least, I thought I had.

  I never could have prepared myself for this: waiting in my car at ten p.m., two blocks from Tillie’s house, watching for the flash of her eyes in my parking lights.

  “Kathryn?” she’d whispered, almost a question, when I told her who I was. The chilled fracture of her mouth stuttered to a smile, unsure. Then her hands rose to cover it, dropping her cigarette pack onto the porch.

  I nodded. I didn’t realize I’d started to cry, too, until a breeze swelled around us and my face felt cold.

  She moved to hug me, but hesitated, another question. I opened my arms.

  Her face changed again: pale and pinched, as a string of curses spilled out of the cracks in the door. It sounded like it was getting closer, but then faded, like the guy was pacing through the house. Circling. Like a bird of prey.

  “I shouldn’t….” She studied me. “Could we meet somewhere? Tonight?”

  “Meet somewhere?” I stepped back and lowered my arms. “Um…sure. I mean, I guess so.”

  “Tonight will just be better,” she explained. The smile she gave was worlds apart from the one a few seconds ago. It seemed rehearsed. “Is ten o’clock too late for you, or…?”

  I waited for the alternative, but she didn’t give one. “Uh, yeah, ten is…ten is okay. Where do you want to meet?”

  “The corner of Chestnut and Dogwood. It’s a couple blocks that way.”

  My head turned in the direction she pointed. When I looked back, she had her hand on the doorknob behind her, folded into the corner of the porch like a mouse.

  “Chestnut and Dogwood,” I repeated softly. My brain lagged. On some level, I knew exactly what was going on here, but it didn’t sync with the pamphlets and research. It didn’t match my daydreams, replayed endlessly in the silences of the trip.

  For the rest of the day, I camped out in a booth of a diner called Goodman’s, down the main road. It reminded me of the little chicken-and-waffles joint Mom would take me to as a kid, after Cotillion class. The incongruity of it all was my favorite part: eating waffle sandwiches with my elbows propped defiantly on the table, after hours of ballroom dancing and learning “ladylike” behavior.

  I wasn’t hungry. Too many questions cluttered my head to register any kind of appetite. Still, as the hours dragged past and tables cleared, refilled, and cleared again, the smell of syrup got to me.

  “Do it like this,” Mom would instruct, every time. I knew the routine by heart, but this demonstration, with all the charm and flourish of a cooking show, was part of the tradition for us. Her hands aligned everything at perfect angles and spacing, pretty as a picture, before picking up a knife and slicing the chicken tenders length-wise. Then she’d place them side-by-side on a waffle.

  “Just a drizzle.” The cascade of syrup down the breading was like a lava lamp, mesmerizing and soothing. “The ratio of sweet and savory is very precise.”

  “I like lots of syrup,” I’d protest. But when it was my turn to make a sandwich, I still followed her instructions, trusting that my mother knew, without fail, what was best.

  “Anything else?” the waitress asked, around six p.m., when I’d finally caved and ordered a plate of waffles. The chicken tenders were from the kids’ menu, and nothing impressive—much smaller than the ones Mom and I used.

  “No.” I slid the syrup dispenser towards me and positioned the utensils just so. “I’m good.”

  When everything was assembled, the ratios perfect, I took a bite and felt, for the first time all day, truly and completely calm. It didn’t last long, when my watch beeped the hour and reminded me why I was here, but I shut my eyes and crunched it away a little longer.

  In the days since he died, I hadn’t let myself miss my father much. It was easy: my grief wasn’t ready yet, happy to sit inside the box where I put it, ripening. I knew the drill. When Mom died, I did the same thing. School counselors were amazed at my coping abilities; friends said I was in denial. Maybe it was something in-between: denying the full weight of the loss, letting just a little bit out of the box at a time, until I was strong enough to face it all.

  Sitting alone in that booth, though, I felt as helpless as I had in my car this morning. Like every box was still completely full and opening at once, each heartache lining up to get a good swing.

  I was here to see my mom, but all I could think about was the one I already knew.

  You aren’t replacing her, I reasoned. She and Dad were my parents. Tillie could become a friend and, in time, a parent of a different kind, the word carrying its own weight and leaving its own footprint in my heart. I couldn’t explain the difference, but that was okay. Some things, I now knew, were easier to just feel.

  It’s okay to miss them. You’re allowed to. You’re supposed to.

  There was something about this in all those pamphlets, too, but no more than a blurb. Research couldn’t prepare you for everything.

  Now, as Tillie slips around the corner and smiles into my headlights, I feel calm again. A
s strange as this whole thing is, for more reasons than one, it helps those boxes in my head shrink back to size. I don’t have to handle it all right now, right away. One step at a time will be enough.

  “Hi,” Tillie whispers as she gets in. “Sorry about that. I had a lot of work to catch up on.”

  I nod, not believing her. This afternoon involved a lot of thinking for me, and one of the most prominent subjects was why she wanted to meet this way. It didn’t take long to figure out why.

  “Where do you want to go?” I ask, shifting into Drive and crawling towards the corner. She stops me before I turn onto her street.

  “Turn left, instead.”

  “Left? I thought the main road was that—”

  “We can go around, I’ll show you.” Her voice is tight, held close.

  I change my signal and turn. She directs me in a loop that would have taken one-third the time had we gone right. Once again, the “why” isn’t much of a mystery.

  “There’s a diner down this street,” she says, “at the fourth light. It’s called—”

  “Goodman’s.”

  “Yeah.” She smiles. “You know it?”

  “You could say that.”

  When we walk inside, the waitress points at me. “Weren’t you just in here?” I don’t mean to nod as wearily as I do, but she just laughs and gives us the booth I had not two hours ago.

  My hands tear up my napkin. Tillie studies the menu. It’s weird: she looks much more relaxed, away from the house, but her bruise looks so much worse.

  “Can I ask…?” I pause and weigh my words. “Why couldn’t we talk at your house?”

  “Oh, it’s a mess,” she sighs. There’s that rehearsed smile again. “Not at all ready for company.”

  My throat feels swollen shut. I drink the coffee the waitress poured and let the heat pool in my chest, loosening some words. “That guy you live with, did he do that?”

  Tillie’s fingers skirt the edge of the bruise. Her eyes fall from mine.

  “Look,” I say, taking another gulp of coffee; this time, it’s searing, “we just met, so…so it’s not really my place to say this, but if he’s hurting you, you shouldn’t be with him.”

  “Honey, let’s not talk about me yet.” Her face has a doll-like quality to it: the bruise looks like paint, and her expression is just a stencil, pre-made to look happy and collected. I know that face. I’ve made it myself, once or twice.

  The waitress comes back, twirling her pencil between her fingers. I tell her we’ll need another moment.

  “I want to hear everything.” Tillie’s voice softens when the waitress leaves, like she might cry again. “I’ve imagined meeting you for so long. I want to know…well, as much you’ll let me.”

  Her subject change throws me a little. Then again, so has basically everything that’s happened today, so I decide to roll with it for a while. It’s easier. “I guess I can start with…how I found you?”

  “I am curious about that, I’ll admit.” The flutter of her fingers over her menu, picking at the laminated edge that’s peeling free, tells me there’s more at work than curiosity. Maybe she’s glad I found her. That anyone did.

  Maybe it scares her too, though—because if I could find her here, someone else could find her if she left.

  “I didn’t know I was adopted, for one,” I start. “My aunt told me last week, after my dad passed away. So that’s why I didn’t try to find you sooner.”

  She gasps. “How did he die?”

  “Kidney failure. I tried to donate one of mine, but I wasn’t a match. Not that I knew why at the time.” It still hurts, remembering. The doctor told me with a shrug, his face not nearly sad enough for what he was telling me.

  “But we have the same blood type,” I’d argued. My brain was locked up tight. It wouldn’t accept this answer.

  “Yes, but the tissue typing doesn’t match.” It was only then that his expression became visibly different. And now, in my memory, it isn’t filled with sadness, like I’d thought. It was confusion.

  “None of the antigens match, which would make it extremely likely the transplant wouldn’t be successful.” He paused. “Parents and children have at least three. I, um…I think you should talk to your dad about this.”

  At the time, I thought he meant I should be the one to tell Dad I wasn’t a match, which he took as good news. “I’m already old,” he muttered. “Don’t risk your health for me. If I go, I go.”

  It took me until the morning before I went to the adoption agency, with the shower blasting hot water onto my back, to understand what that doctor meant. Parents and children, biological ones, had three or more antigen matches.

  We’d had zero. No more than perfect strangers.

  “How’s Evelyn taking it?” Tillie asks, bringing me back. Her hand is pressed against her chest.

  “Actually...she passed away, too.” My eyes have to look away as I say it. “Eleven years ago, from colon cancer.”

  “Kathryn, I—I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

  “Thank you.” I bite my lip. “Um…how did you know them? Did you meet them through the agency?”

  “No, no. We did everything through the agency, but I knew Evelyn before that. She was my high school math teacher.” Tillie stirs her water with her straw. “I was young when I had you—sixteen—and she heard I was considering giving you up, so....” She puts her hands in her lap. “They always wanted a child, and I knew I couldn’t keep taking care of you on my own. It seemed like everyone got the best possible outcome.”

  Her use of the word “seemed” makes me think she regrets it. I don’t want her to regret it; it’s over with, and it did work out well, at least for me. I watch the tear skate down her face, along her nose, before telling her, “They gave me a really great childhood.”

  The smile she gives is smaller, weaker, than the fake-looking one, but means so much more. “I knew they would.”

  Fifteen

  Shepherd

  Starting my life over wasn’t supposed to feel like this.

  When I first planned it out, I saw myself leaving with purpose. Not out of the blue with a stranger, and not on money that, more or less, had been stolen from the only two people I have in my life right now. Or used to have, anyway.

  It was going to be incredible. I’d set out early in the morning, maybe in summertime, with the sun rising over the trees along the highway. My destination—an element I never bothered choosing, sure it would suddenly come to me before I left—would be circled on a map in my bag. I’d have an apartment already picked out. My new home would be a blank slate, no memories, no temptations. No reminders of the person I used to be. Life would be easy.

  Now, though, with strangers bumping past me while I stare up at the travel boards in the bus station, I realize how wrong I was.

  Just pick somewhere. It doesn’t matter. I need a new town, any town, and things will feel easy after that.

  If I can get away from here, I’ll stop thinking about her.

  Austin is less than three hours away, and one of the cheapest routes. What I’ll do when I get there, I have no idea: I definitely don’t have enough for the apartment my little New Life fantasy calls for, but maybe I can find a couch to crash on, or a room to rent, from someone who isn’t caught up on details. I’ve done both before.

  The bus smells like hot rust and tar. I put my bag in the seat beside me and shut my eyes against it all: the fumes, the people, the noise of other lives.

  I sleep for at least half the trip. The other half, my brain won’t stop turning.

  This would have happened anyway, right? At the end of the road trip, after we found Tillie—if we found Tillie—I would have still been on a bus like this one, headed far away from my old life. Away from Lila.

  You wouldn’t have hurt her, though. You would have gotten a chance to say goodbye.

  Every time the thoughts get too bad, I let myself drift off, the bus swaying and rattling over every bump in the road. People filter
on and off at each station. Most look exhausted, and thankfully, none try to talk to me. I’m not sure I’ve got the energy to be friendly.

  I miss talking to her. It was easy, or at least easier than talking to most people. Even though she prodded into my life more than I wanted, I didn’t mind, after a bit. It was nice to have someone care enough to ask.

  “You’ve changed, though. I think you’re a nice guy.”

  Maybe I wouldn’t have dragged her down, after all. Maybe I wouldn’t have slipped and gone back down in the first place. But I care about her too much to hinge all that on maybe.

  Lila

  “I won’t say giving you to them was the wrong choice.” Tillie finishes her coffee after another yawn; we’ve been talking for over an hour. “I missed you, though. I never stopped. And there were plenty of times I wished I’d never taken the Ashburys up on their offer, even though I knew it would have been selfish not to.”

  “I’m not angry at you for giving me up,” I say. “I understand why you did it.”

  “Really?”

  I nod.

  Tillie grabs a napkin from the dispenser and wipes her eyes, wincing when she touches the bruise. “Thank you. That means a lot to me. I spent a long time worrying you’d hate me, or something.”

  I think about this. The pamphlets mentioned resentment, a section I’d skipped entirely. If I’d learned the truth sooner, maybe I would have been angry at Tillie, or even hated her, just because I was too young to see the other side. Finding out as an adult has its upsides, I guess.

  “I definitely don’t hate you,” I assure her. It makes her tear up all over again.

  The waitress comes back for our orders. I get pancakes this time, and Tillie orders the same. We both add whipped cream.

  “Did you inherit my infamous sweet tooth?” she jokes.