by Edie Claire
Ri looked, too. Shelby’s face was covered with half a dozen angry red spots. So was her neck. And her arms. She must have been spattered with grease when she put the saucepan under the tap. It was a miracle her hair hadn’t caught fire.
“Maybe you should call that ambulance,” Ri agreed, wrapping her jacket around Shelby’s shoulders.
“Sit down over here,” the neighbor suggested, leading them both a few yards to a bench on her own front porch. Ri sat, pulling a zombielike Shelby down with her. More people appeared, seemingly an army of them. The neighbor man returned with Will and Bryant in tow, and Ri was relieved to see that both guys appeared unharmed.
“I think it’s out,” Will announced, even as a siren sounded in the distance. “But we can’t be sure with that fan pulling air up in the ductwork. The firemen are going to have to check it out.” He smeared a dirty hand across his brow and dropped down on the ground beside the bench.
“What started it?” three or four people asked at once.
Will shot a look at Shelby, but said nothing.
“Grease fire,” Bryant announced. “She said she was going to make popcorn, but she didn’t know how to do it except in a microwave, so she looked it up online. Then she didn’t know how to use a gas stove.” He rolled his eyes. “Next thing I know she’s screaming her guts out. By the time we got there she was standing there holding this pan in the middle of the room with flames shooting up out of it, and before we could stop her she’d thrown it in the sink and turned the water on full blast.”
Winces, along with a few sympathetic groans, rippled throughout the crowd. The wail of a second siren added its song to the first, and Ri felt an unpleasant wave of dizziness. She looked again for signs of normalcy in Shelby’s stony, checked-out face, but saw none. She glanced down at the other intern’s diamond-studded watch and noted the time.
Half past midnight.
Midnight? Are you kidding me?
Ri couldn’t have slept more than four hours. It wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough. Perhaps, if she was lucky, she had dreamed up this entire scenario and she was actually still in bed, safely and happily asleep.
Shelby’s shoulders began to shiver. Only a little at first. Then uncontrollably. “Could somebody bring a blanket?” Ri heard herself ask as she wrapped an arm around the other woman and pulled her closer.
“More smoke’s coming out of the roof there!” someone in the crowd declared, pointing.
A fire engine arrived. Some hazy amount of time later, an ambulance pulled up as well.
Everything that was happening to Ri had a certain edginess to it, that unpredictable touch of reality — like the distinct smell of burning plastic, or the nagging pain from a cut she’d acquired on her bare left foot — that should have convinced her she was not making this up.
But Ri had always been a dreamer. A dreamer with abundant faith in the power of her own imagination.
And as the hours ticked by through the rest of that endless, miserable night, she never gave up hoping.
Chapter 5
Portland, Maine, 1992
“I didn’t come here for you to give me therapy,” Julie said crossly, sniffling into a tissue. She was angry at herself. She’d never broken down in front of Ri’s therapist before. She was a professional herself. It was embarrassing. “It’s just that I thought we’d see more progress by now.”
“Every child is different,” the older woman said calmly, holding Julie’s now perfectly content baby daughter on her own lap. The infant sat up straight and tall, alternating banging the stuffed lion she’d been given against her thigh and sticking its head into her mouth. Occasionally she babbled at the therapist and put her hand against the woman’s mouth when she was talking, apparently in an effort to attract her attention. But whenever the therapist did look at her, the baby quickly turned away.
“You keep forgetting how much progress she’s already made,” the therapist reminded. “Physically, you’ve done wonders with her. She’s gained weight, she’s sitting up, and she’ll be crawling any day now. She will catch up altogether, in time. And the way she’s taken to babbling, I see no reason to worry about speech deficits. She is having to learn a new language in the midst of all the other upheaval.”
“I understand that,” Julie said quickly. She didn’t need to be told any of this. New sights, new sounds, new smells, new feels, new tastes. Everything in the world, everything, had changed for baby Ri when Julie and Tom had ripped her away from that orphanage and flown her thousands of miles to her new home. Even change for the better was still drastic, frightening change. “It’s just that…” Julie’s eyes grew weepy again, and her face burned with shame. “I knew what could happen, but I didn’t know how hard it would be to feel…” Julie knew she should go ahead and say it. “She doesn’t even like me!”
Julie smashed her whole wad of tissues onto her face, covering her mouth, eyes, and nose. Sobs shook her rib cage, and she decided to let them come. Her tears flowed freely, and she lifted the tissues only enough to breathe and hiccup until the torrent at last came under control.
She took two deep breaths and wiped the mess from her face. She opened her eyes and looked up. The therapist was watching her sympathetically, holding out several more tissues. What was more amazing was that Baby Ri was also watching her. Those gorgeous big brown eyes were, for once, looking fully back into Julie’s own. They seemed oddly curious. And then they turned wary.
The baby looked away and stuck the lion’s head back in her mouth.
Julie laughed ruefully. “That’s the longest she’s looked at me in weeks.”
The therapist smiled. “Mrs. Sullivan,” she said gently. “What you’re feeling is completely understandable. No matter if you knew whether to expect it or not. I suspect I would feel the same way in your shoes. And I mean that.”
Julie nodded appreciatively.
“You know that this isn’t about Ri not liking you,” the therapist continued. “It’s about a baby who spent the first eight months of her life having no idea what face would appear above her crib next. Who would pick her up. Who would feed her. If anyone would feed her. She stopped crying when she wanted to be held or comforted because no one came anyway. She stopped paying attention to people because no one paid attention to her. She was born pre-programmed to bond, yet for the longest time, there was no one she could bond to. So she closed that door in self-defense.”
“I understand,” Julie mumbled, wiping her eyes again. She did understand. It just didn’t help.
“In the months you’ve had her, you and Tom have worked wonders,” the therapist assured. “In every way. She’s opened up to the world. She’s engaging. She’s interacting. She’s playing. She wasn’t making eye contact with anyone at first, and now she’s quite sociable, at least with strangers. And you know why that is.”
Julie nodded, sniffling again. “She doesn’t feel threatened by them. She’s pretty good with Tom, too. She’ll sit in his lap and look at him. She’s even smiled at him a few times.”
“I know that hurts, Mrs. Sullivan,” the therapist said. “But Ri resists you the most only because she is beginning to feel close to you. By getting inside her heart you are demanding something from her that frightens her. She never learned to trust, and she still doesn’t believe she is safe with you. She will come to trust you. But in order to do that, she’s got believe that you’re different from every other person she has ever known, even farther back than she can consciously remember. Once she does believe that you will always be there for her, once she feels safe, you are going to see a very different little girl. It just takes time.”
“But how much time?”
“You know I can’t predict that,” the therapist answered. “But I can tell you that I’ve seen many adopted infants with symptoms similar to Ri’s go on to lead perfectly normal, happy lives. And as much progress as she’s made so far, I believe you have every reason to be optimistic. Please try to get as much rest as you can, and to
keep your spirits up. Have you been sleeping any better?”
“Not really,” Julie replied. “Most nights she still cries.” For at least two hours straight. Sometimes four or five. And nothing I do can console her.
The therapist offered her sympathetic smile again, then rose. “I’m so sorry. Keep up the strategies we talked about, and add in the new ones. I wrote everything down on the sheet. As she improves in other areas, the sleeping problems should gradually diminish, too.”
Julie nodded without comment. She’d heard that line for months. There was no change. She didn’t see how she could ever sleep when Tom had to work days and she was up every night. Any kind of childcare was out of the question. Part of Ri’s therapy was that she should never be separated from Julie, even for an hour. Constant togetherness was critical for their bonding.
The therapist held out the baby, and Julie stretched out her arms and took her. Ri cried out in protest, first stiffening her back and then kicking her feet as Julie tucked the child onto a hip. The lion was cast off onto the floor as Ri’s arms began to flail wildly.
“She always does that,” Julie said quietly.
The therapist nodded.
Julie started to leave, then turned back again. “These other children who get better,” she asked, wincing as a tiny fist struck her ear. “They go on to have normal relationships? I mean, not just with their parents, but with other people, too? Siblings? Friends? They get married? Have kids of their own?”
“The research is young, like I said,” the therapist answered. “But yes, we have every reason to believe that, with the right therapy, these infants can go on to have full, normal, healthy relationships. With anyone.”
Julie dodged a wild swing at her nose.
“Thank you,” she replied.
Chapter 6
Maui, Hawaii, 2016
Ri’s eyes opened to a room comfortably darkened by two layers of curtains. Sunlight peeked in only around the edges of the window, which consumed the majority of the wall beside the bed in which she slept. Ri was sure she had never seen either the window or the wall before, but oddly, that thought did not disturb her. She merely lay there staring, mildly curious at best, letting her eyesight and brain slowly adjust to full consciousness before she expended any effort on the matter.
A motel. She was in a motel. Interesting. And how had that happened?
The fire!
Ri’s pulse shot up. Of course. There was a reason she didn’t want to remember. As long as she was still asleep she could continue to pretend the whole, horrible scene with Shelby had never happened. She stretched her limbs with a groan, then looked around. Her backpack sat on the motel desk. Her suitcase lay on a rack beside it. It hadn’t been a dream. The fire had actually happened.
But she was here now, and safe. She should count her blessings. First off, everybody got out okay. Secondly, she still had her stuff. Thank goodness she’d been too tired to bother unpacking. She had no idea how her bags had mysteriously moved themselves from her bedroom to the neighbors’ patio last night, considering that no one had been allowed back inside the house after the firefighters left. But she suspected she owed her neighbors a favor. Aside from the clinging smell of smoke, her belongings had come through unscathed.
Her memory of last night was hazy in general, but the part after Shelby left in the ambulance was particularly incoherent. She could remember the arrival of a very upset Mrs. Araki, and a bit later, that of an administrative higher-up from the Foundation. But all she knew was that the latter had driven the three remaining interns to the motel, checked them in, and told them to take the next day off. Any details beyond those had failed to register. Not only had she no idea of the man’s name, she could not pick his face out of a lineup if her life depended on it.
She leaned toward her bedside table and checked the clock. It was three in the afternoon.
Oh, my.
Ri pulled herself out of bed and winced as her left foot contacted the floor. Oh, right. The cut. She really should take care of that. She located her phone and scrolled through well wishes from Lachland and several others from the Foundation, including an email from HR which provided her with the cell numbers of the other interns. Will and Bryant must have escaped with their phones, too, since they had apparently texted her about breakfast four hours ago.
Ri roused herself to full consciousness, showered, and dressed quickly. She put some ointment on the cut on her heel — which didn’t look that bad — applied a bandage, and headed outside. She needed to find something to eat, and she wanted an update on Shelby. She stepped out onto a pathway leading through a green lawn and looked around. It was humbling to realize she had no clue where the hotel was even located.
A flock of spotted doves cooed and pecked in the grass near her feet, and a gusty breeze kicked up. Ri caught a scent on the air and breathed in with a smile. Ah-ha! She turned and walked around the corner of the building to where the courtyard opened up. Now she knew where she was. The hotel was on the north end of Kahului, facing the bay on the opposite side of the land bridge from where the Foundation was located. Within this protected harbor, the waves didn’t roll into shore with much gusto, which is why she hadn’t heard the ocean. But it was here just the same. She had glimpsed this area from the plane yesterday.
Was it really only yesterday?
The view was modest, as Maui views went, with the open ocean being hemmed in by the jetties that arched out to form the harbor. But Ri concentrated on the blue of the water and the intoxicating smell of the sea. Roughly twelve hours’ sleep, straight through, had definitely revived her. She had been given an unexpected weekday off, and she still had a few business hours left of it.
Should I do it? Is this my chance?
Her fingers itched to pull out her phone and call her mother. She was used to bouncing such major life decisions off her mom. She usually ran them by her dad and Mei Lin as well, although the Mei Lin step in the process was really just for affirmation, since her sister rarely disagreed with anything Ri decided. But this time, Ri resisted her itchy fingers. She’d called her family just last evening to let them know she had arrived okay. But she couldn’t call again now without telling them about the fire, and that would only worry them when they should be focused on the business of getting Mei Lin and her fiance moved to Texas. Ri would talk through everything with her family eventually. They were close, and it felt right. But in the end she had always made her own decisions, and she felt confident making this one now. Ri was ready for answers, and she wanted them today.
Her decision made, she got directions and advice from the desk clerk, grabbed a quick fast-food brunch, and set off. She had texted back to Will and Bryant, but neither of them were answering, and Shelby’s phone was off the grid — probably still lying somewhere in the burned-out kitchen. Lachland, however, promptly answered her email by reporting that Shelby’s injuries were not serious and that they expected her to be released from the hospital sometime today.
Once Ri’s angst was relieved on that score, she focused on the matter at hand. Whatever doubts she’d had before about pursuing the DNA connection had been put to rest the moment Mrs. Araki asked if she was kama'aina. Ri wanted to meet this possible distant cousin of hers, and she wanted to do it face to face. Ever since she’d located her supposed relative’s place of employment, people had been telling her to “just call!” But she had never wanted to do that. Relationships were too important to her. Phones could be hung up and emails could be ignored. If she was going to confront this person with her questions, she wanted to do it in person. To look in his eyes, see his expression, hear his tone of voice. She wanted to make real contact.
As the bus bounced along the Kahului thoroughfare, Ri studied the people sitting around her. She tried not to stare, but the local populace fascinated her. So much diversity of appearance. So many shades of brown. So many eye shapes, and nose types, and bone structures. Most people here had dark hair and eyes. But beyond those similarities
, all bets were off. Throw the occasional Caucasian into the mix, and you had a cornucopia of appearances so complex that no one stood out. Least of all Ri, who melted into the crowd like any of a hundred chattering myna birds in the trees outside the bus windows.
Growing up as a biracial child with a Chinese sibling running about an otherwise solidly white, upper middle-class hamlet of Maine, one might think Ri would find the change refreshing. She wasn’t sure herself why her first experience with anonymity should feel so disconcerting.
Her stop rolled up all too soon. She disembarked and looked around at the new, boring rectangular buildings of a generic commercial district. If it weren’t for the palm trees, some planted hibiscus, and the profile of the West Mountain in the background, she could almost forget she was on Maui. She followed the numbers on the buildings until she arrived at the business she sought. Then, leaving herself no time to reconsider, she marched up to the reception desk, asked to see the employee in question, admitted she did not have an appointment, and even had the gall to claim to be a relative.
“Oh, all right, then,” the friendly woman behind the desk said with a smile. “If you’ll just have a seat, I’ll let him know you’re here.”
Ri sat.
The lobby of the office building was pleasant enough. The walls were covered with framed prints of natural landscapes and wild animals, and leafy plants hugged the large windows. She had liked everything she’d read about the law firm, which was a nonprofit that supported environmental causes. But the longer she sat, the more time she had to second-guess herself.
Too late, she realized she had lost the element of surprise. Her name would mean nothing to him. There was a distinct chance she’d be sent away before she ever laid eyes on the man.
Ri’s back straightened. Forget that! She just wouldn’t leave.
Two minutes later, she heard the sound of a door opening down the hallway. A tall, very attractive man wearing a tie and business slacks strode up to her and extended a hand. His hair was dark and wavy, his skin very similar in tone to her own. Liquid brown eyes with long lashes — unfairly beautiful to belong to a man — looked at her quizzically, while a friendly face smiled down at her. “Hello,” he greeted. “Are you Ri Sullivan?”