by Dante Medema
on my tongue.
He who must not be
named.
He who must not be
remembered
or acknowledged
or even discussed.
He.
The evil thing
that must be expelled from our lives.
Banished.
Trashed.
And I’m just the girl
who lives
because of it.
I let his name rest on my tongue,
stretching my teeth
around those four little letters
I’ve been holding inside
for days.
“He’s like Jack?”
Mom takes too long
before the realization hits her face.
Like it had to travel
from her ears
to her brain
and then
finally
her
mouth.
She starts to talk
a dozen times.
Parting her lips
to choke on
words she probably never
dreamed
she’d have to say.
“Did you just—”
She can’t even repeat
his name.
I want to feel
bigger
stronger somehow
for breaking her apart
the way I feel broken.
Shattered,
and splintered
like fallen icicles on pavement.
But I just feel little
and littler still
next to her.
“How?”
Mom asks,
a single word
caught
at the edge
of a whisper.
“GeneQuest.”
She crumbles.
And part of me,
just part,
feels bad.
“You have to understand
things were different.
Your dad and me—
We were going through
a rough time—”
“Which one?”
“Oh my god.
Cordelia.
I mean your father.
Jack—he was a mistake,
my beautiful girl.”
All emotion welling
like fish swimming
beneath the surface
of ice.
I can see just
enough
to know its danger.
“If he was a mistake,
then I was a mistake.”
When you looked into my eyes
and told me I wasn’t his.
I cried.
Not because you took away the only
father
I’ve ever known.
But because I was relieved.
I always knew there was something different about me.
When you looked into my eyes
and told me not to tell him
I cried.
Not because you wanted me to lie.
But because you deepened the gap between me
and the only
father
I’ve ever known.
It will never be okay.
I will never be able to hug my dad without a voice in my
ear
as loud as the Russian River during peak salmon season,
screaming wild rapids, hissing.
He’s not really yours.
This isn’t real.
You are living a lie.
Heart.
Explosion.
Like the Fourth of July
when it’s midnight
and still light outside.
I can see everything
without the mystery of darkness.
What should be magical
is only daytime
and the vague outline
of what might be fireworks.
I’d give anything
for my magic back.
To hear my father,
my Shakespeare-loving
father,
tell me she’s wrong.
Heart.
Implosion.
“The thing about Jack,
he’s not a good guy.
He’s not a dad
kind of guy.”
“How could you?”
I’m hissing,
like a lynx protecting
its baby.
Only my mama is the thing
that threatens.
“Were you ever
going to tell me?”
“I don’t know.
It doesn’t change anything,
does it?
Your dad is still your dad.
This guy is just
a guy.
Honey.
Please.”
“It.
Changes.
Everything.”
When Dad knocks,
we both jump.
He does that thing
he always does.
Happy, cutting through
our tension when he asks,
“What are my girls squabbling about?”
He ruffles my hair,
nuzzles Mom,
and when she
looks into my eyes
she’s pleading.
Please.
Don’t tell him.
Mom looks like she’s
about to lose it.
Her skin, red and veiny
like skinned moose meat
left open
to rot.
She brings a fingernail
up to her mouth,
chewing on the corner.
Even her eyelashes
quiver.
Kodiak Jones
Kodiak: Pretty crazy day
Me: You have no idea.
Kodiak: Is it just me
or did it almost go too far?
It’s probably a good thing your mom called.
Me: What?
Kodiak: Come on.
You know we couldn’t come back from something like that.
Me: Oh.
Yeah. No, I agree.
Kodiak: Did you get in a lot of trouble?
Me: Probably not as much as I should have been.
I asked her about Jack.
Sort of a distraction.
Kodiak: Holy shit!
Delia!
Are you okay?
What did she say?
Me: Ohhhh.
Nothing crazy.
Just that I was right.
And my dad doesn’t know.
So yeah.
Pretty crazy day.
Kodiak: Shit.
My friends just showed up.
I’ll call you in a while.
Sana-Friend ♥
Me: What are you doing tonight?
Sana: That party at Fletcher’s I told you about.
I’m gonna go find out exactly what Emma Daniels means by “It’s complicated” on her Facebook.
Me: You still use Facebook?
Sana: Nope.
But it is part of my 32-step internet sleuthing process.
Me: Take me with you.
Sana: To internet sleuth?
Dude.
I do it right here on my computer.
It’s a dark dirty path though.
I don’t know if you’re up for it.
Me: No.
To Fletcher’s.
Sana: Are you kidding me right now?
No. You’re joking.
Don’t be a tease.
That’s messed up.
All you straight girls.
Me: I had a bad day.
Pick me up at nine?
Sana: No way I’m going out before ten.
Won’t your parents care?
Me: Not tonight they won’t.
Jack Bisset has an Instagram.
I find it when I sear
ch for his name
plus “Seattle.”
Two thousand
two hundred
eighty
miles
away.
His pictures show a life
like a rock star’s.
There’s one of him
with a cigarette in his mouth
where smoke conceals most
of his features like fog
above the mountains
outside my home.
Girls hanging on his arm
in one photo.
Another has him on a
motorcycle
probably driving away from
the history
I live in.
Then the one I saw before
on his Facebook.
Him playing guitar
and with a tattoo
of a woman
on his chest.
She’s got devil horns.
I’m seeing it now,
her long brown hair,
hazel eyes,
and a smirk,
like she’s got nothing to lose.
And I guess she doesn’t.
A striking resemblance
to the woman a room over
who shares the other half
of my DNA.
GeneQuest
Genetic Family Conversations
To: Jack Bisset (last online 2 minutes ago)
From: Cordelia Koenig (online)
Hi Jack,
Sorry it took so long to message you back.
As you can imagine, this week has been a little crazy, and I’m still trying to unpack everything. It’s weird to think that a week ago, I didn’t know about you.
And now here you are.
So, for the sake of getting to know each other, what’s it like to live in Seattle? I’ve only ever been once when I was really little.
GeneQuest
Genetic Family Conversations
To: Cordelia Koenig (online)
From: Jack Bisset (online)
Wow. I didn’t realize you just found out. I assumed you knew, and that’s why you took the GeneQuest test.
That’s got to be hard, kid. I’m sorry. I’ve wondered about you every day since, but I didn’t know what to do. I took the test hoping you might look me up one day. I hoped we’d get in touch and be able to talk, but I didn’t want it to be like this—a total surprise for you. I can’t imagine. It’s crazy that it’s happened now. You must have been pretty upset. I can’t believe your parents didn’t tell you.
Seattle is amazing. I’ve been here 18 years now. I guess it’s home. The city has become my playground. I am a music producer, so it’s a perfect place for that. Lots of young musicians and incredible bands. How are things back in Alaska?
How is your mom? Does she know we have been talking?
GeneQuest
Genetic Family Conversations
To: Jack Bisset (online)
From: Cordelia Koenig (online)
Hello Jack,
A music producer? I don’t think I’ve ever met (much less been related to) someone that cool. Have you worked with anyone I might know about? Mom’s good. Her real-estate business really blew up a few years ago, so she’s been busy. And she knows we talk. I asked her what happened after the big message you sent. She’s for sure cool with it.
I know this is kind of weird, but can I call you?
Cordelia
“For sure”
Mom knows.
But Dad still has no idea.
I wonder if he knew
there was even a Jack Bisset
in existence.
If asked,
would he draw a blank?
Ponder if it’s a Shakespearean actor
he should know about?
While Mom knows
I found Jack,
she never asked
if I messaged him
or wanted to talk to him
or planned to talk to him.
But she’s got to assume
that my curiosity
and yearning for truth
would lead to inevitable contact.
So yes,
she knows.
Or at least,
she should.
It’s 7:22 pm
when I call the number
he gave me.
At first the other end
is crackling in and out
of service
and I have to say hello
three times
before I hear anything
back.
“Hi.
Yeah.
I’m here.”
His voice is higher pitched than I imagined.
And I wonder if he is thinking
my voice doesn’t match my pictures either.
If he even looked up my pictures.
My heart is jumping around my chest,
ping-ponging from side to side while I figure out what
to say next.
“This is weird,”
I say,
and when he doesn’t respond
right away
I think I must have said the wrong thing.
But then,
“Yeah, kid.
This is weird.”
We talk for an hour.
He tells me about his band.
And that his recording studio
is right downtown—
he sees the ocean every day
on his way home.
“Yeah, I work with a lot of local artists.
Ever hear of Pentalux?
They were in the studio last week.”
I tell him I love poetry.
How the sound of acoustic guitar
makes my heart thrum,
and he chuckles on the other end of the phone
and it sounds melodious,
like he’s wrapped in delight.
“You get that from me.”
He tells me I should check out
the MTV Unplugged album with Nirvana
and that he never
got over Kurt Cobain’s death.
I want to say my nirvana
is daydreaming a life
where my mom didn’t lie
and I got to know him
while I was growing up.
But instead,
I keep my daydream,
writing a secretive story in my head
that I can visit
anytime
the pain gets
too real.
If I told Kodiak
I was talking to Jack
he’d do the right thing.
He’d come over
and let me sing a poem,
and when we got close enough,
he’d remind me what a bad
idea it is
for us to kiss.
If I told Sana
she’d make a joke,
and forget
that not everyone
administers comedy
for pain.
I want to tell someone
my secrets.
About the father I never knew.
Anyone.
But it’s all too messed up.
I’ll just keep it in,
holding fragile eggs
with barbed fingers.
Jack Bisset
Me: Back then.
When you had to leave.
How did you get it to stop hurting?
Jack: I didn’t.
It still hurts.
But at least now we can know each other.
Me: We can.
9:55 pm
As I leave
for the party
Iris is sitting in the hall
playing on her phone.
Hashtag bored.
She doesn’t look up,
but I crawl next to her,
resting my chin
on her soft brown hair.
“I’m sorry
to get you.”
“It’s okay,”
she says.
“But you’re being weird.
Weirder than normal.”
Tears in every corner of her eyes
like pools of raindrops,
she’s waiting for me to say something.
“You’ve got to be nicer to Mom.
All your fighting.
She cries every day,
did you know?”
I cringe,
hold Iris’s hand in mine
careful
like she’s the most brittle layer of spruce bark
I’m peeling away from a tree.
She’ll never know her mom,
and my mom,
are different people.
One loves,
the other lies.
If Jack was my father
maybe we’d split time
between here and Seattle.
Maybe Alaska would be our summers.
Seattle, our rainy winters.
Maybe Iris wouldn’t be here,
and maybe she would.
Maybe Mom would’ve
dyed her hair a bright color—like green—
and quit real estate to follow Jack.
Maybe Mom wouldn’t be so uptight,
and maybe Bea wouldn’t be so uptight either.
Maybe Dad wouldn’t tease
and run fingers up Mom’s side
or look so happy all the time.
Maybe he wouldn’t have his Shakespeare
or his smile for me only.
Maybe Dad wouldn’t be Dad,
but a guy Mom used to know.
And this realization paralyzes my heart,
like it’s been kicked out of my chest.
When Sana arrives
it’s like cool pine
wafts through
our windows.
She’s the breath of freshness
I needed after a day
filled with anger
and sadness.
Mom sits on the couch
tearstained eyes
with fingernails between her teeth
and doesn’t say a word
about me leaving.
Dad has his arm around her,
and nuzzles her like a puppy.
He’s got no idea
the reason she’s crying
isn’t because I’m being awful.
It’s because I caught her
in the only lie
that could tear us apart.
“Where goeth thee?”
Dad bellows.
“Out,” I say.
“Okay,” he says,
watching me,
as I fight back the fear
he’s expecting something more.
I miss him already,
this man,
missing from my “Maybe” life.