by Caela Carter
Julia yells at me instead.
“That’s in two days! How could you not tell me you’re moving in only two days?”
I have to pretend I already knew.
“Alma,” Mom says. “You may pack one suitcase. Your big one. Why don’t you girls go to your room and work on that?”
I start to walk to my room. Behind my head Julia asks, “Only one suitcase? To move to Florida? Why?”
“Don’t question me, dear,” Mom says.
By the time Julia comes into my room she’s basically as short as I am.
I pull the big suitcase out from under my bed, open my closet, and stare.
I almost wish Julia weren’t here. I want to be alone to think. I want sit down at my desk and write a list of pros and cons.
Pro: I love Nanny and PopPop.
Con: No Julia.
Pro: Maybe I won’t miss Adam so much while I’m in Florida.
Con: I won’t be able to look for Dad anymore. Maybe I’ll never find him.
“Alma,” Julia whispers harshly. I turn to look at her. She’s sitting on my bed. “Do you really think you should move all the way to Florida?”
“It doesn’t matter if I should,” I say. “I have to.”
“No,” Julia answers. “Maybe we can figure something out.”
“Why are you whispering?” I ask.
I take a sundress out of my closet, fold it, and put it in my suitcase. I’ve officially started packing to move back to Florida. This is so crazy it’s making me dizzy.
“I mean, maybe you can stay,” Julia says, still whispering. “Like stay with us.”
My stomach is starting to turn itself inside out. It crawls closer to my throat. I don’t like what Julia is getting at.
“My mom can’t live with you,” I say, like she’s stupid. “Adam is your uncle.”
Adam’s name feels huge and clunky in my mouth. Saying his name out loud is like asking a question: illegal in this house.
“No,” Julia says. “I mean just you. Maybe your mom can move to Florida and my parents can keep taking care of you.”
I lower my eyebrows and turn all the way to look at her. Now I’m feeling angry at her for real, not faking it to try to get her to do something.
“Your parents don’t take care of me,” I say.
Julia falters. “Well, this summer—”
I interrupt her “You want me to leave my mom?” I ask.
“No . . . I just mean . . . your mom doesn’t seem that . . . safe.”
“What?” I say.
“Or you don’t seem that safe with her.”
“Julia,” I say, rolling my eyes. “It’s Florida. Not a war zone.”
I’m trying to shrink her again but it doesn’t work.
“But . . . she hasn’t been there for you all summer, you know? And before that Adam did a lot of the work of taking care of you.”
“Is that what your parents say?” I demand. Because it’s not true. My mom has always been my mom. There have always been rules because of my mom. There has always been food and good-night kisses and pianos because of my mom. She hasn’t been easy to be around since Adam left but that’s my business. Not Julia’s. Not her parents.
Julia doesn’t answer. She just keeps talking. Too fast now. “Your mom has been dropping you off over and over again all summer. And then she didn’t even tell you you’re moving. She didn’t even tell you, Alma.”
“Yes she did,” I lie.
The lie doesn’t make me feel better this time. Probably because Julia doesn’t believe it.
“Kids need to be safe,” she says. “Kids need safe grown-ups. Maybe you need a new one, at least for a while.”
“My mom is safe,” I say. “And it’s not like people can just switch parents.”
Although as soon as I say that I think about them. My dad who was my dad and then wasn’t anything. Adam who was almost my dad, and then wasn’t.
“Some kids do,” Julia says.
I don’t want to think about how either of them aren’t my dad anymore. I tilt my head at her. “That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard.”
She gasps like I just slapped her.
“Who switches families?” I demand. “Parents disappear. Parents die. They don’t get switched.”
Julia looks at her toes. She’s shorter now. I finally did it. It doesn’t feel good though. “Mine did,” she says.
“What are you talking about?” I say.
“My mom,” Julia says.
I roll my eyes. “Your mom is perfect,” I say.
“Not that mom,” Julia says.
I lower my eyebrows. It takes me a minute to figure out what she’s talking about. But then I do. She means her mom from Korea. The one who she grew inside of.
She’s never talked about her before.
I didn’t even know she thought about her.
And until this moment I’ve never thought about the fact that there’s a woman walking around on the other side of the world who is also Julia’s mom.
“Oh,” I whisper.
“She couldn’t be a safe grown-up,” Julia says. “So I ended up with my now-parents. That’s how they explain it. And I’m lucky because sometimes kids have to live with not-safe grown-ups for always.”
“That’s not the same thing,” I say. Even though part of me knows I should stop talking about me. I should listen to whatever Julia is trying to tell me and be a good friend. That this is about Julia now and that she’s trying to tell me something new, something huge—she still misses her mom in Korea.
Julia never really told me everything, either, I realize.
But I just found out I’m moving. I don’t want to let this moment be about Julia. I keep talking.
“My mom loves me, Julia. She tells me that every night.”
Julia stands up. “My mom loved me too,” she says.
“Not the same way. Not like a real mom.”
As soon as I say the words, I want to eat them back up. Who knows if her mom in Korea loved Julia? Who knows how she loved her? I don’t know anything about her and I don’t know if Julia does either.
“There’s no such thing as a not-real mom!” Julia shouts.
I shrug. I’m embarrassed now. I don’t know how to be her friend for this subject. It’s too much bigger than either of us. “You know what I mean.”
“I don’t though,” Julia says.
She waits for me to explain. When I don’t, she keeps talking.
“I always thought you understood me,” Julia says. “I thought all those times that I was helping you try to find your dad, you knew I understood.”
“You couldn’t understand,” I say.
“But I do!” Julia says. There are tears in her eyes now. They’re annoying me. I don’t want them there. I’m the one moving. I should be the one who gets to cry. “My parents won’t tell me anything about her. I find ways to ask but . . . nothing. I know why you need to find your dad. I get it. I’m the same. But this whole time you weren’t ever thinking about me, were you?”
I stumble. I don’t know what to say.
I feel selfish and guilty, but that makes me defensive.
“I was going with you to graveyard after graveyard, reading creepy headstones, getting rained on, wasting my whole summer. You never thought about my other mom in all that time? You never thought about why I knew how much you needed to do that?”
How was I supposed to know she wanted to find her Korean mom?
And why does she even want to do that when she already has the perfect mom?
She’s making it seem like being adopted into a perfect family is as confusing and messed up as losing two dads in a row. Like adoption can somehow hurt as much as death and divorce.
“Just because you’re adopted doesn’t mean everyone has to be,” I say. I hurt both of us with that sentence. She just doesn’t know how it hurts me too.
Julia freezes for more than a minute. Her body is contorted, her mouth is half open in a way t
hat should be impossible. It looks like I broke her.
“Goodbye, Alma,” she says.
Then she walks out of my bedroom. I follow her down the hallway. I watch her collect her books and walk out the front door. She doesn’t say anything else. I don’t know how she gets home. Maybe she calls her mom. Maybe her mom was outside the whole time. I don’t care how it happens. She’s gone.
She just disappears.
She disappears because that’s what people do. That’s what everyone does.
Except my mom.
I spend every minute of the next day with my mom. I push every Julia-thought out of my brain and concentrate on being with her. It feels so good. It feels like one of the holes in my heart is starting to fill in again.
We go to the mall. We buy me two new outfits for my new school—a sundress and a shorts and tank combo. We buy me a new pair of sandals. We buy Mom a cotton skirt that flows off her big hips in just the right way.
Then we go to a pharmacy and buy cold medicine and cough medicine and ibuprofen and Pepto-Bismol and Tums. “Is somebody sick?” I ask.
“No, Alma,” Mom says without looking at me.
I don’t ask the follow-up question. I don’t ask why we are getting so many medicines if no one is sick. I choose love over questions.
Mom insists on buying me fancy noise-canceling headphones even though I’ve never asked for them. Still, I hold them close as we walk out of the store and back toward our car. My own mom is taking care of me.
After the pharmacy we go to the pizza place for lunch. Mom checks her watch and says, “We have to hurry back! Someone is coming to buy the car.”
“What?” I ask, shocked. I almost ask why again, but then I switch to a safer question. “But then, how are we getting to Florida?”
Mom smiles. “Alma McArthur,” she says, like she’s giving me an award or something. “Tomorrow will be your first trip on an airplane.”
I can’t help but smile too.
I’m about to ask how we’ll get around in Florida without a car when Mom reaches over and ruffles my ponytail. “I’ve thought of every little thing,” she says. “I promise. You just try to enjoy the adventure.”
I take a sip of my soda and nod. I’ll do that. Or I’ll try.
That night, my last night in my Adam-haunted house, my alarm goes off at 1:30 a.m., when I know my mom will be sleeping. She’s back to wearing her hair in a tight bun, which I hope also means she’s back to bedtimes and strict homework policies.
She’s back.
I pull sneakers on with my pj’s and tiptoe down the hallway and out the kitchen door. A light rain falls on my head and shoulders but I don’t turn back for a raincoat. It’s a warm rain and in some graveyard, somewhere in the greater Pittsburgh area, my dad is getting rained on too.
I sneak through the fences until I’m back where I first looked for him. He finds me immediately. He’s the wind dancing around my head. He’s the goose bumps popping up on my arms as the rain dots them. He’s tugging at my heart so fast I can’t help but follow him.
A soft rumbling of thunder sounds from far away.
The first time I was in this graveyard it was just like this. The middle of the night. Alone. In the rain.
I was certain I’d find him here.
So I’d searched and searched until I found the simple headstone that said JFC. The one that tricked me.
But now he’s tugging me. I know it’s him even if he isn’t buried here. A wind hits my back so hard all my hair flies in the direction he’s tugging. I take a step that way and the next gust is so powerful, it knocks my glasses off my face.
I can see them. They’re just a glint of green in the moonlight, skittering across the dark grass. So we follow my dad’s tugging: my glasses first, then my hair, then the rest of me. When I bend to pick them up, my fingers touch a familiar J. I kneel and put them on. We’re at the old headstone.
JFC
Suddenly there’s an inexplicable smile on my face. My heart feels warm and safe despite my body being pummeled by rain and wind. I wonder if this is what it’s like to have two parents. If having two parents always makes your heart feel warm.
It doesn’t matter if it’s not his headstone. It doesn’t matter if this isn’t actually where he’s buried. My dad has been hanging out here, at this headstone with his initials, as close to me as he could be.
The wind dies down and it feels like his arms are around my shoulders as I kneel there in the grass.
“I can’t believe I have to leave without the answer,” I say out loud. Then I open the earth to bury the last question I’ll ever bury in this graveyard.
Will you forgive me if I never find you?
Ten
What Happens to People After They Disappear?
MOM IS STRESSED AT THE AIRPORT. She’s constantly digging in her purse and tugging on my arm and weaving through crowds and reading signs half out loud. She asks me if I have to go to the bathroom every time we pass one.
“This might be your last chance for a while,” she keeps saying. So I keep pretending to pee.
Finally we end up in a long line inching slowly toward a big desk with lots of airline employees working behind it. It’s been an hour since Mom said we have four hours so we must still have three hours, which seems like it would be plenty of time but Mom keeps checking her phone. She lifts her suitcase. Then she lifts mine. Then hers again. “This isn’t more than sixty pounds?”—she points to my suitcase—“is it?”
I lower my eyebrows at her.
“They’re gonna charge us through the nose if it’s more than sixty pounds,” she says. “Lift it. See what you think.”
I lift my bag. It’s heavy.
“I don’t know,” I say.
“Well, do you have any extra room in your carry-on?” she says. “Your backpack?”
My backpack has my computer, my tablet, a book, a sweatshirt, and my new headphones. Mom kept asking me if I needed to pack more to do on the plane but I looked it up and it’s only a two-hour flight. “Yes,” I say.
Then Mom squats so her entire body is ballooning over my suitcase. She lays it down, unzips it, and pulls out a handful of my underwear. “Here!” she says. “Stuff this in your backpack.”
“Mom!” I say, mortified.
We’re inching closer to the front of the line. Mom is squat-walking along the tiled floor of the airport, pushing my open bag with her feet and handing me things to shove in my backpack.
“Here!” she says. She hands me a two-pack of deodorant. I’m not sure if it’s worse to have her sliding along the floor like that, to have my suitcase open for the entire airport to see, or to have her pulling out only the most embarrassing things.
If this were Mom-from-before-Adam-left, she would have weighed the suitcases before we arrived at the airport. She’d know exactly how many ounces underweight we ended up.
Of course, if this were before Adam left, we wouldn’t be here. Mom would be at home working and I’d be in Mr. Hendricks’s class making faces and giggling with Julia.
But I’m trying not to think about Julia now the same way I’m trying not to think about Adam.
“Mom!” I say. “Stop! We’re at the front.”
“Oh!” she says, so loudly I’m sure even the taxi drivers outside the airport could hear her. “Well, fingers crossed.” She gives me a smile and straightens the long, flowy skirt she’s wearing.
She yanks hard on the suitcase to right it and everything comes tumbling onto the floor. The rest of my underwear. My teddy bear. My books. My T-shirts and flip-flops and the dress I wore to the spring recital last year.
“MOM!” I yell.
“IDs, please?” the lady behind the counter says.
“Pick that stuff up, Alma,” Mom says, as if she’s not the one who spilled it all over the place.
But of course I already am. I’m picking stuff up and shoving it quickly into my bag. My backpack is heavy on my back. The people in line behind me are tapping
their feet. My underwear is spread three or four feet in all directions. I’m rushing around trying to make sure I pick it all up and that I don’t miss any and that there won’t be some old man who holds a pair up in a few minutes and calls out, “These yours, little girl?” I’m so focused I almost don’t hear the lady at the desk. But I do.
“So two passengers, one adult, one child, direct to Lisbon, Portugal, today,” she says. “These are your seats.”
I freeze. I don’t think about teddy under my left arm and the handful of underwear in my right hand. I straighten up. “Mom?” I say.
Above the woman’s head is a lit-up sign that says “International Flights.”
“Mom? Mom? Mom?” I say.
“That’s perfect,” Mom says, looking at whatever the lady is showing her. “Thank you.”
“Yup, and your gate will be A5,” the woman says. “Boarding starts in one hour.”
“MOM!” I say.
Mom turns around. Her eyes are hard as rocks. I have no idea what she’s thinking. “One minute, Alma,” she says.
“I’ll take your bags now.”
Mom makes a motion like I’d better finish cleaning up her mess.
The guy behind me mumbles, “Jeez, lady. Help your kid with her bag.”
But she doesn’t. I shove in the last handful, zip it, and wheel it closer to her. Mom hoists it up. The scale reads 48.8 pounds, which means we didn’t even need to shove all the extra stuff into my backpack after all.
We leave that line and stand in another one. Mom hands me a piece of paper and tells me not to lose it.
I study it. At the top it reads BOARDING PASS.
It says her name.
It says Pittsburgh, PA, to Lisbon, Portugal.
“Mom?” I say. I’m almost in tears. I don’t know why this is hurting so much. I’ve always wanted to go to Portugal. “Mom?”
She turns to me so quickly her hair whips across my face.
“What, Alma? What is it? This is really not a good time for questions.”
It’s never a good time for questions.
I push past the anger and sadness and confusion to make myself keep talking. I won’t leave here without any answers.
“You said we were going to see Nanny,” I say.