The Length of a String

by Elissa Brent Weissman

  She made a face, trying to demonstrate, and I let out a laugh so loud, the entire class—including Ethan—looked our way. Mrs. Coleman did not look happy. Luckily, the bell rang at that exact moment, and Madeline and I bolted before we could get in trouble. We ran, laughing and puffing, out the side door of the temple and to the corner, where we had to wait for our younger brothers so we could all walk home together.

  “Let me know what your parents say,” Madeline said, catching her breath.

  “I will,” I promised. “Tonight.”

  CHAPTER 2

  When Jaime and I got home, my mom was standing at the stove, crying. This wasn’t too shocking a scene; Mom’s a crier. For all I knew, these tears could be because we ran out of chicken broth. Even so, the odds of me keeping my promise to Madeline were looking slim. I was already worried that my request would break my mom’s heart. It would not be smart to bring it up when she’s sobbing into a pot of soup.

  “Hi, Mom,” Jaime said. He put his backpack down on a kitchen chair and approached her cautiously.

  Mom turned around. “Hi, sweetie,” she said with a sniffle. Her eyes were all pink and puffy. Maybe this wasn’t about chicken broth.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  Mom swallowed and gave me a sad smile. “Grandma Anna died.”

  “Whoa,” I said. Is it bad that my first thought was that I definitely shouldn’t ask about finding my birth parents tonight? Is it worse that I felt relieved about that instead of sad about Grandma Anna? In my defense, Grandma Anna is actually my great-grandmother—my mom’s grandma—and I didn’t know her very well. She lives—lived, I guess—up in New York, and we live in a suburb of Baltimore. Mom’s always saying we should go visit her more, and we were actually planning to go see her in New York next month, around Thanksgiving. I guess we wouldn’t get to see her now. It hit me that that was probably making Mom extra sad. I thought about going over to hug her, but for some reason it seemed weird. The mom’s supposed to comfort the kid, not the other way around.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, tentatively.

  Mom sniffled again, and I could see that fresh tears were about to fall.

  Jaime was starting to get sad too. He’s super tuned in to Mom’s emotions.

  I moved to put my arm around Jaime, and Mom came over and hugged us both. “It’s okay,” she said, restoring the proper giving-comfort order. She gave Jaime a kiss on the forehead. “She was eighty-five. She lived a very full life.”

  “How did she die?” Jaime asked.

  “Peacefully,” Mom said. “In her sleep.”

  That’s how I want to die too. Asleep. I’ve thought about this before. “That’s good,” I said.

  “Very good,” Mom agreed.

  I heard the front door. Dad was home. He came into the kitchen and wrapped his skinny arms around Mom and, by default, Jaime and me.

  Mom sighed and pulled out of the full-family hug. She wiped her eyes, sniffed, and stood up straight. “The funeral’s tomorrow,” she told us. “We’re going to have to drive to New York tonight, after dinner.”

  “Tonight?” Jaime said.

  “Tonight,” Dad confirmed. “We’ll probably stay through the weekend, so figure three or four days. Why don’t you two go pack?”

  Three or four days in New York. Funeral, family, sad stuff. There was no way I’d be able to bring up anything about searching for my birth family until this whole thing was over. Off the hook for now, and with a perfectly good excuse.

  I climbed the stairs slowly. What sort of clothes do you wear to a funeral? I wasn’t sure Dad would know, and I couldn’t exactly ask Mom. I figured I’d text Madeline—she could ask her mom—but when I got to my room, I found my black skirt and blue collared shirt already on my bed. I peeked in Jaime’s room. Mom had laid out his suit.

  That was just so Mom, to think of us, even when her grandma had just died. I thought about her downstairs, and Dad hugging her, and I got this warm pang in my chest. The kind of pang that made me feel guilty that I want to know about my biological family at all.

  CHAPTER 3

  The hardest part about the funeral was seeing so many grown-ups cry. My mom always cries, so that wasn’t particularly sad. But my grandpa Fred, who’s never greeted me without a goofy grin or a new magic trick, sobbed into his handkerchief. (I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised, since this funeral was for his mom.) My great-aunt Janet (Grandpa Fred’s sister) buried her wet face in Grandpa Fred’s shoulder. Even Aunt Jess—who arrived at the cemetery on her Harley, her Mohawk freshly dyed black—was dripping tears that made her thick eyeliner run down her otherwise stony face.

  Jaime and I stayed close to Dad. I was by his left pocket, which was unusually flat, meaning Dad hadn’t brought his video camera. That thing was usually strapped to his hand. I guess a funeral was the one thing he didn’t want to record and relive later.

  I heard a couple sniffles from Jaime and a glance confirmed that he was, in fact, crying. Why? Was it because all the adults were so upset? Or did he feel some deep connection to Great-Grandma Anna that I couldn’t?

  I got a lump in my throat, as if I’d swallowed a gumball whole, but it still wasn’t about Grandma Anna. I was worrying about myself. Am I some kind of cold, unfeeling monster? Jaime’s so sensitive, like Mom and the rest of her family. It’s almost like he inherited it for real instead of being adopted. I guess I could add “heartlessness” to the list of ways I’m different from my family. Does Jaime even feel different at all? If he does, he sure doesn’t show it. Add that to the list too.

  Maybe, somewhere, I have a biological brother, and he’s just as cold-hearted as I am. Like me, he’d be more creeped out than sad about the big coffin right there, with our great-grandma in it, dead. We’d whisper to each other about there being people in coffins underneath all of this grass, and we’d both curl our toes in our stiff black shoes.

  But in my actual life, the rabbi was talking about how hard it is to say goodbye to people we love. “Anna was no stranger to goodbyes herself. She had to say goodbye to everyone and everything she knew when she was just twelve years old. A child! But this brave child became part of a new family, and she grew up to create her own.”

  What? I thought. A new family? I knew, vaguely, that Grandma Anna had an interesting history. She was born in Luxembourg, a tiny little country in Europe that I picked for International Day in fourth grade. (I wasn’t going to bother fighting for one of the popular countries like Italy or Australia.) I knew she came to America when she was a kid, maybe close to my age. But I didn’t know she’d gotten a new family. Was Grandma Anna adopted, like me?

  I listened hard, blocking out the sniffling sounds, but the rabbi had moved on to naming Grandma Anna’s descendants. Then he switched to Hebrew for the Mourner’s Kaddish, one of the prayers I knew well from my bat mitzvah lessons. After that, Grandpa Fred shoveled some dirt onto the coffin, and my other relatives followed. Dad leaned down and asked quietly if Jaime or I wanted to do it too. We looked at each other hesitantly and both shook our heads. I knew it wasn’t the time or place to whisper back asking if Grandma Anna had been adopted. Dad probably didn’t know anyway. And then everyone was hugging and getting into cars for a silent ride to Grandma Anna’s apartment.

  When Madeline’s grandfather died a couple years ago, my whole family went to pay a shiva call. I was really nervous on the short walk over, thinking everybody would be all sad and quiet, and I wouldn’t know what to say or do. But it was nothing like that. There were tons of people gathered, and everybody was sharing funny stories about her grandpa. Family photos—old-timey ones and new ones too—were laid out around the whole living room. The TV was even playing an old video, one where Madeline’s aunts and uncles had ugly clothes and goofy haircuts that made everybody laugh. There was tons of food too, and everybody kept telling me to eat more, so I did. Madeline’s family was sad, I’m sure, bu
t someone passing by an open window would’ve thought they were gathered for a birthday party rather than a mourning ritual.

  So this time, I thought I knew what to expect. But leave it to my mom’s family: It was the exact opposite. Great-Aunt Janet was a wreck. Grandpa Fred tried to be cheerful, but he just couldn’t muster it. Aunt Jess didn’t even come.

  Even some of Grandma Anna’s elderly friends thought the whole thing was too big of a downer. “What’s with all the sadness?” an old lady whispered to me near the tray of bakery cookies (the kind that crumble into a thousand pieces on the way to your mouth). “Anna was eighty-five. I’m only eighty-two, and every day I don’t see my name on the obituary page, I consider it a success.”

  I gave a weak chuckle, not knowing the polite response to an old lady telling you she might croak at any moment.

  The lady pointed to the tray of cookies. “Are these sugar-free?” she asked me.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Ask your boss.”

  I wrinkled my forehead. Then I looked where the lady’s bony chin was pointing, and saw a woman putting out more napkins. She was wearing dress pants and a collared shirt, and she was the only other person in the room with skin as dark as mine.

  “I’m not working here,” I said dryly. “I’m Anna’s great-granddaughter.”

  Now it was the old lady’s turn to chuckle weakly. I walked away and sat by Jaime on the plastic-covered sofa, leaving the lady to feel awkward.

  “This sucks,” I muttered.

  Saving grace: My parents felt the same way. Mom was going to stay and mourn with her family for the whole seven days of shiva. But Dad, Jaime, and I only stuck around for another lousy half hour. Then we put the giant bowl of uneaten tortellini salad in the trunk with our unopened weekend bags. We kissed everyone goodbye and took off for home. It was going to take all night to get there, though. The Holland Tunnel was an ocean of brake lights. “Who are all these people,” Dad said, “and where are they going?”

  I looked at the people in the next car and wondered the same thing.

  “Hey Imani,” said Jaime, “you want to play Pickle?”

  “Not really,” I said.

  “Picnic?”

  “Nah.”

  “The movie game?”

  I sighed. Jaime always wants to do this little-kid stuff. “Can’t you just listen to your iPod or something?”

  “I want to play with you.”

  I leaned my head against the window. “Maybe when we get to New Jersey.”

  Jaime groaned. “How long will that take?”

  Dad sat back in his seat and shook his head. “How long is a piece of string?”

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  “It means,” Dad said with a chuckle, “that I have no idea.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Mom might have been in New York all week, but only her body was missing. She called and texted me constantly, not wanting to miss a moment of my life. I’m used to it from when she goes on business trips, this constant checking in. I’ve tried to use it to my advantage, pointing out that if I had a phone from this century, I could text her pictures of my life while she’s away, but so far it hasn’t worked. I still have this ancient phone that doesn’t have a camera or even a touchscreen. And all week, it chimed with texts from my mom, trying to make sure I wasn’t hitting any major milestones without her, I guess.

  In reality, she only missed one important thing: My tennis match against Central. I normally play doubles, but Sophie Volk got sick, so I got to play singles for the first time. My dad and Jaime came, and they cheered when Coach called my name for fourth singles. Dad had his video camera, of course, so Mom could watch the match when she got back, even if I double-faulted the whole thing.

  My opponent was a tall, muscular girl with blond hair and red braces. We met at the net to determine who’d serve first, and she pointed with her racquet to my family. “Who are they?”

  “My dad and my brother.”

  Her face contorted with confusion. “Is your mom black?”

  I’m used to strangers asking me obnoxious questions that are none of their business. What I’m not used to is playing singles, and fielding obnoxious questions right now could mess with my head. I needed to shut this down, but I was too nervous for the game to do anything but tell the truth. “I’m adopted,” I said. “Heads or tails?”

  But she couldn’t have cared less about tossing the coin for that first serve. “That’s so cool! Have you ever met your real parents?”

  “I live with them,” I said coldly.

  “No, like your real parents. You know. Biologically or whatever. Do you know them?”

  “No.”

  “You should find them!” suggested this total stranger. “You might have this amazing history you don’t know about.”

  Thank you! I thought sarcastically. That never occurred to me until you brought it up. “Heads or tails?” I asked again.

  “Where are you from?” the girl asked. “Like, what are you?”

  My fist tightened around my racquet. I’m allowed to wonder about that because it’s my life. But what’s it to this girl? Why would she care? It’s not like she should aim for my forehand if I’m Puerto Rican and play at the net if I’m part Chippewa.

  “Tell her, Imani,” came a voice from the side of the court. It was Ethan, with his racquet and his sport goggles instead of glasses, on his way to his own singles match. “Don’t be modest.”

  I looked at him. Waited.

  “Imani’s really a Williams,” he told my opponent. “You’ve probably heard of her sisters, Venus and Serena?”

  The blonde’s mouth dropped open, showing her full mouth of metal. “For real?”

  I suppressed a smile and shrugged, trying to appear as Williams-like as I could. “They had to place me for adoption so they could focus on my sisters’ training.”

  “No way . . .” the girl said.

  “Watch out for her backhand!” Ethan called before jogging over to his court.

  “You’re kidding, right?” the girl said. But I could tell she still wasn’t sure. And now I wasn’t sure how wrong Parker was about Ethan liking me.

  My face got warm, and this time I couldn’t keep my lips from curling up. I hoped my nosy opponent thought it was because I was embarrassed that my true lineage had been revealed. Now I just had to play well enough to convince her. I drew up my shoulders and prepared, again, to flip the coin. “Heads or tails?”

  CHAPTER 5

  So, did you win?” Grandpa Fred asked.

  Dad and Jaime and I were back in New York, and I knew Grandpa would appreciate the story Ethan told that girl. I made sure to tell it to him while my mom was busy with something else; she wouldn’t have appreciated it at all. We never talk about my adoption—a major reason I’m so nervous to tell her what I want for my bat mitzvah.

  “I lost,” I told Grandpa.

  “No!”

  “Yeah. I won a few games, but she took the match. I kept double-faulting.”

  “Eh,” Grandpa said. “You gave her the story of her life. One day she’ll tell her grandkids she won against a Williams.”

  I laughed. “I guess I did her a favor.”

  “That’s right.” Grandpa patted me on the shoulder. “You did a mitzvah.”

  The sounds coming from the second bedroom started getting louder, and Grandpa’s smile turned into a frown. My mom and her siblings were arguing again. My dad had said there’d be a different vibe here after shiva, and he was right. Instead of sobbing or being somber, now everyone was fighting. Over Grandma Anna’s stuff.

  “Why do you need a sterling silver gravy spoon?” Aunt Jess asked my uncle Dan.

  “I’m an adult,” Uncle Dan said. “I might host dinner parties.”

  “Oh yeah?” Aunt Jess snorted. “
In your cabin in the woods? Who’s going to come, grizzly bears?”

  “Better than biker dudes who look like grizzly bears.”

  “My friends do not look like grizzly bears!”

  My mom stifled a laugh. When Aunt Jess turned to glare at her, Uncle Dan tucked the big silver spoon in a side pocket of his cargo pants. It was so heavy it made the whole pant leg droop. Uncle Dan wasn’t wearing a belt, so he had to grab the waist to keep his underwear from showing. Now my mom laughed at that. Jess whirled around and shook her head at Dan. “That is exactly why you shouldn’t get all the valuable things.”

  “Jess,” Mom said seriously. “There’s a whole closet of valuable fur coats that you don’t want any part of.”

  “That’s right. Because fur is murder.”

  “I don’t blame you for thinking that,” Dan said. “It’d be like making a coat out of one of your hairy biker friends.”

  Jess lunged at Dan, and my mom jumped in the middle, and Grandpa sighed and said, “Excuse me, Imani. My grown children are acting like toddlers.”

  I had no desire to watch the fight unfold, so I decided to go back to my own inheritance. Even though there seemed to be no instructions as to who could claim the expensive things like fur coats and gravy spoons, Grandma Anna did specify that certain things were meant for her great-grandchildren. Jaime got an ancient baseball glove and a collection of marbles in a small wooden box. My cousin Isabel, who’s only five, got the stuffed bear that always sat on a high shelf above Grandma Anna’s bed. And I got a big box of chemistry equipment. Some of it was really old, but some looked brand-new. I chuckled, picturing my eighty-five-year-old great-grandmother wearing safety goggles, conducting experiments in this small, musty apartment.

  According to Grandpa, her will also stated that us three great-grandchildren were to inherit all of her books. When I first heard that, the lump from the funeral returned to my throat, and this time it was about Grandma Anna. We didn’t visit her that often, but whenever we did, she’d stock the living room bookshelf with books just for us. If it had been the kind of shiva where people shared happy memories of the deceased, I’d have shared that whenever we arrived at Grandma Anna’s apartment, she’d first sit us at her kitchen table and say, “Eat.” Once we were full, she’d lead us to the living room bookshelf and say, “Read.” Those two words were among the only ones I ever heard her say. Grandma Anna was pretty quiet, around me and Jaime at least. She definitely never talked about being adopted, if she was. Maybe that’s where my mom gets it.