Far From the Tree

by Robin Benway

  Maya paused, then hopped off her bar stool and put her arm around her sister’s shoulders. “I didn’t . . . I’m not . . . fuck, okay. I’m not leaving our family, okay? I’m not,” she said when Lauren just cried harder. “I don’t want to leave. But I like getting to know Grace and Joaquin. I’m not sure if I even want to meet my bio mom or not, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love you.”

  “It’d be easier to believe you if you’d stop ignoring me,” Lauren sniffled.

  “Okay, I’m sorry. I was just mad that you texted Claire. It felt like—”

  “Like I broke the rules. I know. Will you just promise to tell me if you go looking for your bio mom?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “And will you stop ignoring me?”

  “Will you stop texting my ex-girlfriend information about my personal life?”

  “That was one time! But yes.”

  “Okay.”

  “I love you,” Lauren whispered. “Even when you act like a brat sometimes.”

  “And I love you, even when you call me a brat.”

  It wasn’t the best as far as apologies go, but at two in the morning, with the world spinning faster than either of them could control, it felt like it could be the start of just enough.

  JOAQUIN

  Joaquin’s weekend was not off to the best of starts.

  On Friday, just as he was about to leave school and head home, the guidance counselor poked her head out of her office. “Joaquin?” she said. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

  Joaquin glanced around just to make sure that there wasn’t another Joaquin standing behind him. He’d had no idea that the guidance counselor even knew who he was. She normally spent her time with the kids who were applying and going to colleges. Joaquin had watched the flurry of college applications from afar, everyone getting ready to leave home for the next phase of their lives.

  He thought it was ironic that everyone was trying so hard to leave home, when all he wanted to do was stay in one.

  “I saw this,” the guidance counselor said to him when he was finally in her office, ignoring all the inspirational posters that told Joaquin that he could do it! “And of course, I thought of you. I thought you might be able to use it!” She smiled at him.

  Joaquin glanced down at the paper she handed him. It was printed out from the internet, and the date above said that the article was written almost five years earlier. “Tips for Phasing Out of Foster Care” it said in bold letters at the top, and then below, “What You Need to Know for a Successful Adulthood . . . and Beyond!” There was a picture of a rocket next to the headline.

  “You thought of me,” Joaquin said, trying to keep from laughing or crying or whatever that reaction was that was bubbling up in his chest, pressing down on his lungs.

  “I did,” she said.

  “Of course you did,” he replied.

  Joaquin knew very well that he was turning eighteen in three months. He didn’t need the guidance counselor to remind him of that. He also knew that there were services that he could use until he was twenty-one: rent and food subsidies, possible scholarships for school, job assistance. But Joaquin had spent a literal lifetime in the system, being promised things that were always just out of reach, and he didn’t want to spend the next three years chasing the white rabbit down the hole. He had always just assumed he’d join the army, but then he’d think about leaving Mark and Linda’s house and his stomach would flip.

  As soon as he was out of the guidance counselor’s office, he threw the article in the trash.

  When he met Ana at their diner, someone was already seated in their normal booth, and there were kids running around, and Joaquin felt like he wanted to peel off his skin, it felt so tight.

  “I told Mark and Linda that I didn’t want to go through with the adoption,” he said as soon as the waiter brought their drinks. “There, now you can yell at me for the rest of the hour.”

  Ana widened her eyes but then just started tearing the paper wrapper off her straw. “I’m not going to yell at you,” she said, in a voice that was a little too steady. “If that’s truly what you want, then I’m not upset. In fact, I’d congratulate you on asking for what you want.”

  “But?” Joaquin asked.

  “But,” she continued, “I don’t think that’s actually what you want. I think you think that’s what Mark and Linda want instead. I think you’re afraid of disappointing them, and afraid that they’ll disappoint you, so you shut it down before you could take a chance and get hurt.”

  “I’m not worried about getting hurt,” Joaquin insisted. “I’m worried about them getting hurt. I don’t know how I’m going to react, so I . . .” He moved his hands farther apart in front of him.

  “Distance yourself?” Ana guessed.

  Joaquin just took his straw and pounded it on the table until the wrapper was crinkled up at the bottom. He felt like picking a fight with her, and he didn’t know why. “You want to know what I did last weekend?” he said.

  “Of course,” Ana said, smooth as glass as always.

  “I saw Grace and Maya. We met for coffee, and while we were there, some guy Grace knew came up to her and started calling her a slut.” Joaquin jammed his straw into his drink with more force than necessary.

  Now Ana really did look surprised. “Why?” she asked.

  “Dunno. I guess I didn’t really get a chance to ask before I slammed the guy against the wall.” Joaquin could still feel the pulse against his forearm, how good it had felt to scare Adam as badly as he had scared Grace. “We didn’t get in a fight. I just told him to leave my sister alone, and he and his friend ran away.”

  Ana sipped at her lemonade. “Did you use the word sister?”

  Joaquin nodded.

  “And then what did you do?”

  “I . . .” Under the table, Joaquin started to bounce his leg, a nervous habit that he had never been able to break. “I ran.”

  “Where did you run?”

  “Into the parking lot.”

  “And Grace and Maya?”

  “They followed me into the park next to the mall. I was . . . my hands kept shaking. I couldn’t stop them.”

  “Joaquin.” Ana’s voice was too soft for the noise of the diner, but Joaquin heard her loud and clear. “Did you scare yourself?”

  Joaquin nodded. He had wanted to tell Ana the story so he could shake her up, make her realize that he was beyond saving, that she was better off having salads and lemonade with a kid who could actually be fixed, but her eyes were so gentle, so sad, that it just made him want to cry.

  “I told . . . I told them.”

  Ana frowned a little. “Told who what?”

  “Grace and Maya. About Natalie.”

  Ana reached over, placed her hand on top of his, and didn’t say anything.

  “They said . . .” Joaquin bit his lip, blinked his eyes. “They said that I was just a kid, you know? They said it wasn’t my fault.”

  “And did you believe them?”

  Joaquin shook his head as his lower lip began to wobble.

  “Did you want to?”

  This time, he nodded, and Ana squeezed his hand and stood up. “C’mon,” she said. “Let’s go for a walk.”

  They walked outside until Joaquin felt like he could breathe again. “I’m really proud of you, you know,” Ana said as they walked down the main drag. “That’s a huge step in your relationship with Grace and Maya. The last time we talked about them, you said you would never tell them about it.”

  Joaquin shrugged. “It just sort of happened. I didn’t plan it.”

  “Did you hurt the guy who called Grace a slut?”

  “No, he just ran off. I just felt so . . .” Joaquin held up his hands in front of him, miming squeezing something. “It was the look on her face, you know? When he said that. She just looked so sad.”

  “And that made you sad, too?”

  “No. It made me angry.”

  Ana grinned up at him. “Anger
is a very—”

  “—very valid emotion,” Joaquin singsonged. He had heard her say that phrase at least a million times. “I know, I know. It just feels fucking awful.”

  “And how did it feel when your sisters weren’t angry with you for hurting Natalie?”

  Joaquin didn’t know that there was a word to express that feeling. It wasn’t happiness, or relief, or bewilderment. It wasn’t confusion, either, or pity for them being stupid enough to trust him. None of those were right.

  “In one of the homes when I was six,” he said instead, “everyone got bikes for Christmas. Even the foster kids, so that was a big deal. But mine was a two-wheeler and I didn’t know how to ride, so the foster dad put training wheels on mine. And I would ride up and down the street, and every time I thought I was going to fall, the wheels stopped me.”

  Ana had stopped walking and was looking up at Joaquin. He didn’t know if that was a good or bad thing.

  “And I finally learned to ride, but I wouldn’t let them take the wheels off because I liked that feeling, you know? They caught me every time. That’s what it felt like with Grace and Maya. Like I was falling, but then I didn’t. They were there.”

  And then Joaquin watched as—to his absolute horror—a tear slipped down Ana’s cheek.

  “Oh, shit,” he said before he could stop himself. Joaquin wasn’t sure what happened when you made your therapist cry, but it probably wasn’t good. “I’m sorry. I am so—”

  “No, no, it’s not . . . I’m sorry, Joaquin.” She lifted her sunglasses long enough to wipe at her eyes, laughing through her tears. “I’m just really, really proud of you, that’s all.”

  Joaquin eyed her suspiciously.

  “I really am okay,” she said, then readjusted her sunglasses. “I just want you to think about something.”

  “Okay,” Joaquin said. He would have offered to train circus seals if it meant Ana would stop crying.

  “I know you don’t believe it now, I know you might not ever believe it, but Mark and Linda are like those training wheels, too. What you described? That’s what parents do. They catch you before you fall. That’s what family is.”

  Joaquin thought of Mark and Linda sitting next to him after a nightmare, easing the darkness away.

  “Okay,” he said instead. He hoped that one day he would have the words to tell everyone how he felt inside, but okay would have to do for now.

  “Okay,” Ana agreed. “I’m starving. Do you like frozen yogurt?”

  “Okay,” Joaquin said again, then grinned and dodged away before Ana could punch his shoulder.

  There was a strange car in the driveway when Joaquin turned the corner onto Mark and Linda’s street. He stopped skateboarding immediately, kicking the back of his board so he could pick it up by the front wheels.

  It wasn’t his social worker’s car, but maybe she’d gotten a new one? Or maybe Joaquin had gotten a new social worker? Either way, he knew that it was there to take him away. He had seen many strange cars in familiar driveways over the years, all of them with backseats big enough for a boy and a trash bag filled with whatever stuff he could manage to grab.

  Either way, Joaquin wasn’t surprised. He hadn’t expected Mark and Linda to keep him, not after they’d offered him a chance to be adopted and he’d turned it down. Who would want a kid that ungrateful? After all, Joaquin basically had taken food, money, and clothes from them for almost three years. He would want a return on his investment, too.

  He reminded himself to grab his blue ribbon from the fourth grade art fair. It was always the first thing he packed.

  “Oh, shoot!” Linda screamed when Joaquin started to walk in the back door, and he froze, skateboard still in hand. “Mark! Oh, shoot!”

  “Sorry?” Joaquin said.

  “Oh, not you, honey. No, no, come in. We just thought you’d be home later! Oh, shoot!”

  Joaquin stayed in the doorway anyway. Linda was holding a huge red bow in her hands, her glasses pushed up on her head, leaning around the front stairs. “Mark, he’s home! I told you!” Then she turned back to Joaquin. “Honey, come in, come in, it’s fine. You’re fine.” She beckoned him in the door.

  Mark came jogging down the stairs, a little out of breath. “What are you doing here, early bird?” he asked Joaquin, but he was smiling. “Linda wanted to do a big presentation. She got the special bow and everything.”

  Linda just sighed in exasperation.

  Joaquin was still in the doorway. “What?” he finally said. Was he supposed to put that bow on his trash bag? “Is it a surprise going-away party?”

  Both Linda and Mark froze in place. “A what?” Mark asked.

  “Well, there’s a car?” Joaquin said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. “In the driveway?”

  Linda’s face was quickly morphing from exasperated to horrified. “You think we’re sending you away?”

  If this was a guessing game, Joaquin was definitely going to lose. “Um.”

  Mark and Linda looked at each other, and then Linda walked over and pulled Joaquin into the house, the screen door slamming behind him. “Joaquin,” Linda said, “that car is for you.”

  Joaquin just blinked at her. “What?”

  She put her hands on his shoulders, holding him in place.

  “Sit down, kiddo,” Mark said, pulling out a chair.

  Joaquin sat down with a thud, his heart starting to race. It all felt like a trick, like an elaborate stunt that would leave him humiliated and embarrassed, and yet, at the same time, he didn’t think Mark or Linda would do that to him.

  “You got a car. For me?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Linda said, then put the enormous bow on his lap. “You were supposed to be home fifteen minutes later. We were going to put a bow on it like in the car commercials.”

  “We were sort of hoping that we’d make a viral YouTube video,” Mark teased, sitting down across from him. “You’ve just cost us millions of dollars in advertising revenue, early bird.”

  Joaquin just touched the bow. It was red and soft in his hands.

  “We were going to wait until your eighteenth birthday,” Linda explained, her hand still steady on his shoulder. “But now with Grace and Maya in the picture, we want you to be able to see them whenever you want. You shouldn’t have to depend on us for a ride.”

  “We think that it’s really important for you to see your sisters,” Mark added. He spoke softly, like he was talking to a frightened animal. “You okay, buddy? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  Joaquin nodded. “I’m fine,” he said. “I just didn’t . . . I thought it was the social worker.”

  “Oh, Joaquin,” Linda said, rubbing the back of his neck. She wasn’t a big woman, but her hands always felt so strong, like they could hold things up instead of tearing them apart. “We’re not letting you go anywhere.”

  “You want to go see it?” Mark said, standing up. “It’s got seat warmers.”

  Joaquin smiled at that. “Yeah,” he said, nodding to himself. “Let’s go.”

  It was used, the color of nickels, and there was a small stain on the passenger seat that Linda guessed was melted lipstick. (“Been there,” she said grimly.)

  Joaquin thought it was the most perfect car he’d ever seen.

  “We figured we’d help you out with registration and insurance, at least for the first year, and then with your job at the arts center, you’ve got gas covered,” Mark said after he showed Joaquin the emergency jack, the wool blanket, and the first aid kit in the trunk.

  Joaquin pressed the car keys into his palm, pushing so hard that he thought they would pierce his hand, go straight through to the bone. “Okay,” he said. He had no idea how much gas cost, but he had money saved.

  “And if you ever text and drive, you’ll never drive any car again for the rest of your natural life,” Linda told him. “At least, not while I’m alive.”

  “Got it,” Joaquin said. “You want to still put the bow on?”

  �
�Yes!” Linda cried.

  “No, you need to take the car for a spin,” Mark said, reeling Linda back in. “We can put the bow on something else. Like the neighbor’s cat.”

  “Oh, Mark,” Linda muttered. Mark hated the neighbor’s cat because it peed all over his vegetable garden. Joaquin had heard some epic tirades about that cat in his two years in their home.

  “Go, go,” Mark said, opening up the driver’s-side door. “Drive around. You don’t want to hang out with your par— with us.” Mark cleared his throat. “Go be a teenager for a while.”

  Joaquin wasn’t sure how to do that, but he would try. For them.

  “Seat belt on!” Linda said. “Check your mirrors! The side ones, too! Those are important. Remember your blind spot!”

  Mark pretended to put her in a headlock, pulling her away from the car. “Go,” he said to Joaquin. “Maybe I’ll put the bow on Linda instead.”

  “I heard that!” she said, her voice muffled against his shirt.

  Joaquin put on his seat belt, checked his mirrors (the side ones, too), and carefully backed the car out of the driveway. He had driven Mark and Linda’s cars before, but this was entirely, incredibly different.

  After several minutes, Joaquin pulled the car over to the side of the road.

  His hands were shaking too hard to hold on to the wheel.

  GRACE

  It had been Grace’s idea to meet at Maya’s house two weeks later.

  She didn’t have to say much to talk Maya and Joaquin into it. After the Adam incident, she was pretty sure that none of them would be going back to the mall anytime soon.

  “They gave you a car?” Maya said, breaking through Grace’s thoughts. “Are you serious, Joaquin? And you’re just telling us now?”

  Joaquin looked both confused and embarrassed by the whole situation as he nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “I thought they were sending me away at first. I thought the car was the social worker’s.”

  Grace felt her heart sink into her shoes. She hoped Peach never felt like that, never looked as lost as Joaquin sometimes did. She hoped Peach would never be surprised by the kindness of other people.