When Sarah woke up, she and LaLa moved to the kitchen table, where they are now surrounded by yarn and glue and coloring paper, making a lion.
Cake whispers, “This doesn’t seem so bad.”
LaLa smiles up at us. “I’m LaLa,” she says.
“Cake.”
“Cool name. You and Tiger are a perfect fit.”
Cake says, “Seven years and counting. From pigtails to fishnets.”
LaLa smiles. “I remember those days with my friend Speedy. We went from jelly doughnuts to belly rings in the blink of an eye.”
I walk Cake down the hall to the room I share with Sarah. I almost say, “Let’s go to my room,” but this isn’t my room. My room is in a house I’ll never see again.
Cake looks around. “Where’s the boy?”
I gesture across the hall at Thaddeus’s closed door. From behind it come the pretty trumpets of Chance the Rapper. I’m at war with my wrongs, I’m writing four different songs.
Cake whispers, “Is he cute?”
“Not really on my mind right now, Cake,” I say.
“Just asking.”
She glances around the small room.
“Remember when we were little, and we begged my dad to make us bunk beds? Weird that you have them now.”
She looks closely at me. “You’re still wearing that dress, Tiger.”
“I know.”
“Do you plan to take it off any time soon?”
“No.”
“Is this because of the fight?”
I bite back tears. Cake heard what I said to my mom in the cafeteria. She heard how horrible I was.
Cake says, carefully, “Your mom would forgive you, you know. You know that.”
The girl-bug whispers, She would, but she can’t, not anymore. So we will wear the dress, because you don’t know anything about this. You are a girl with a mother.
Cake and I stare at each other.
“Okay, then,” Cake says finally. “But if you start feeling weird again, like the other night, the S word, promise you’ll tell me, okay?”
I nod.
Thaddeus appears in the doorway to the room, his eyes red. I can’t smell pot, so I know he’s been crying.
“Hey,” he says.
“Cake,” I say. “This is Thaddeus.”
I turn to Thaddeus. “Thaddeus, this is my best friend, Cake. She actually knows Billy Joel. And Billie Jo Armstrong. Not Billie Holiday, because she’s dead, but pretty much any famous Billy you could think of.”
Cake says, “Billy Bragg, for instance. And I did meet Billie Jean King once, too. Also, are you the one who told my friend to run away? Because that would rip me apart.”
“Sorry. Just trying to prepare her.”
“Well, prepare less, okay? I need her.”
“Okay.”
I start talking to ease the tension. “Cake’s parents are in rock and roll. They do both quite well, as a matter of fact. The rock and the roll part. So does Cake. Cake, tell him all the instruments you play.”
But before Cake can tell him, LaLa comes to the door of the bedroom, her face serious.
“Karen’s here, Tiger.”
“This is it,” Cake says, taking my hand and leading me down the hall, Thaddeus following us.
In the living room, I try to gauge the news by Karen’s expression, but she’s poker-faced, a trick she’s probably learned by being in the lost-kid business.
Karen looks at Cake and Thaddeus. “Sorry to bust in on your little party, but I have something serious to talk to Tiger about. Can we have some privacy, guys?”
I shake my head. “They can stay.”
Cake links arms with me and Thaddeus. He kind of blushes when she does that. “Yeah,” Cake says. “We’re staying. We’re her family, too.”
“Well.” Karen digs in her gold purse and brings out some folded pieces of paper.
The look she gives me sends bolts of fear through my heart. Her face looks funny, almost like…almost like she’s the one who’s scared shitless.
“What?” I say, my voice hard. “Just say it.”
She takes a deep breath. “Tiger, the first thing we try to do in this situation is find relatives for children whose parents are unable to provide care. We didn’t have your father’s name at the time, but now we do. Dusty Franklin. Dustin Franklin.”
Cake says brightly, “You finally have a dad. This is good. This seems good. Right?”
We look at each other.
I can tell we’re both remembering the same thing. The first time I went over to her house after we met in third grade, her dad made us cupcakes. I thought that was the best thing in the world. He was nice and funny and smelled like sugar, and when my mom came to pick me up, I said, “Gabe is coming, too. He can be my dad, too.” My mother kind of laughed and so did Cake’s dad, but I got mad when they told me it couldn’t be that way. I cried.
That day, Cake said kindly, “He’s mine. But you can borrow him until you find yours, okay?”
In LaLa’s cozy living room, Cake is grinning. I guess I have finally found my dad.
Dustin Franklin. Dustin. Dusty. I test it out. “My dad…Dustin.”
Everyone is quiet until Cake asks Karen, “So, what happens now? She goes with him? Like, have you talked to him? Where is he? When is he coming?”
“Not so fast, Cake.” Karen still has the funny look on her face. “It’s more complicated than that. Tiger’s father can’t take care of her.”
“Why not?” I don’t mean for my voice to sound so desperate, but it does. “Is he dead, too?”
“He’s not dead.” Karen looks me straight in the eye. “He’s currently in a correctional facility in Springer, New Mexico, serving six to ten years. By the time he gets out, you’ll be over eighteen.”
I try to form words, but I can’t.
I finally have a dad, but he’s locked up, like a precious, yet also criminal, gem.
Thaddeus has words, though. He’s taken the papers from Karen, and is reading something very official looking, with a State of New Mexico Correctional Facility logo in the top corner.
“Dude killed somebody with a car?” His eyes are wide and disbelieving.
Karen nods. “Alcohol was involved. And not a death, but an injury, and Mr. Franklin had several incidences before the one in question, so his sentence is appropriate. Mr. Franklin…your father…has a lot of…history. Addiction to alcohol, multiple arrests for things related to intoxication.”
Cake breathes, “Yikes.”
Thaddeus’s eyes darken as he turns to me. He is, at this point, my sole expert on all things foster-home-related, so of course when I see the darkness in his eyes, my stomach drops, because this can’t be good.
He mutters, “So you do have to go to that new house, then. Remember what I told you, okay? Just remember.”
About leaving. Running away. I think of Sarah and her sister, Pookie, scrounging for hot dogs in the trash can outside 7-Eleven. Sleeping in a cardboard box.
Pookie never coming back.
Dusty Franklin. My dad’s name is Dusty Franklin and he’s in prison, where he’ll be until I’m old enough not to need him anymore. Where he’ll be while I get funneled through home after home after home. Thaddeus told me LaLa’s was his fourteenth home.
I feel sick and disappointed, dizzy and confused. I’m realizing that the things my mom kept from me while she was alive might be more complicated than I ever thought.
“Did my mom know about all this?” I whisper. “Like, where he is?”
Karen looks at me steadily. “Dustin indicated they were in contact over the years, yes.”
So, he was there all along, alive. Messing up, but still alive. A thing. A person. A presence I could have known. Avocados and comedy. Freckles and dark
hair.
“I might throw up,” I say softly, but it’s weird, because I don’t feel sick from sadness or being scared, I feel sick because I’m mad, and I don’t know how to feel about being mad, because that would mean being mad at my mom, and she’s dead, and you can’t be mad at dead people, can you? Isn’t that wrong? But I am, because someone should be helping me with this, like a mom, because I’m just a kid.
I stare at all of them. Cake bites her lip.
Thaddeus says, “Holy crap, she’s flipping out.”
LaLa says, “Sit down, Tiger. Sit. I’ll get you some water.”
I don’t want to sit. I want to break something.
The girl-bug is beating the glass with her whisper-thin wings.
Cake says, “Just breathe, okay. Take it easy.”
She knew all along.
Thaddeus says, “She probably had her reasons for not telling you. I know that sucks, but it’s true, okay? Adults are always lying.”
“This is like a giant soap opera.” Cake collapses on the couch, taking the papers from Thaddeus. She starts reading.
Karen hoists her purse over her shoulder. “Tiger, I know this does seems like a soap opera at this point, and I’m sorry.”
“Can I see him, at least?” My voice is sharp and hoarse. “I mean, now that I know about him, when do I get to meet him? You can’t keep me from him, right? I mean, unless…unless…”
Unless he doesn’t want to see me.
The girl-bug picks at a bruised wing. Not like he ever tried.
That’s right. He’s known about me all these years, a walking piece of his cellular structure, and never come to see me. Or written a letter. Or tried, I don’t know, anything, to know me.
I’m not sure where to put all this anger that’s cresting inside me, because it’s fighting with my sadness.
I hold my breath. Ball my fists behind my back.
“Let’s discuss that later.” Karen pauses. “Dusty’s given me a little bit more information regarding your remaining family that changes your immediate circumstances.”
Remaining family. Immediate circumstances.
Thaddeus says, “Holy shit, this is getting worser by the minute.”
“More worse,” Cake murmurs.
“You do have paternal grandparents, but dementia is a factor for both of them, so they won’t be able to care for you. However…” She trails off, handing me a piece of paper.
I stare down at a grainy image of a woman’s driver’s license. Well, not a woman-woman, like my mom’s age, but like a young woman, a college girl or something. She’s scowling, like she doesn’t want her picture taken. Her eyes are puffy. But no one ever looks good in ID photos, right? Even in my Eugene Field ID, I look at least ten pounds heavier and my eyes are half-mast, like I’m falling asleep.
“What the hell is this?” I shout, my heart thundering in my ears. “What are you telling me?”
“You have a sister. A half sister. She’s your father’s daughter. Her name is Shayna Lee Franklin, she works as a waitress in Hawaii, and she’s twenty years old. She’ll be here by the end of the week.”
Cake blurts out, “A what and a who, now?”
“What does that mean, exactly, ‘she’ll be here by the end of the week’?” I ask slowly.
“It means she’s agreed to be your guardian. As your half sister, she’s your nearest blood relative who can care for you. She’s…family.” She gives me a big fake smile, like this is the best news ever, even though she knows it’s probably not.
I hold the paper closer to my eyes, like there’s a secret buried in the photo that can only be revealed by close-up inspection.
And, in fact, there are a few clues to be had.
Shayna Lee Franklin has curly dark hair stuffed into a messy ponytail.
Shayna Lee Franklin has a nose that’s a little too round at the tip and dark eyes.
Shayna Lee Franklin has a cleft in her chin that mirrors the dimple in my cheek.
She’s your father’s daughter.
“I can’t believe this,” I say, and everybody in the room looks like they can’t believe it, either.
I have a sister and I know this to be true because she looks just fucking like me, right down to the apparent smattering of freckles across her face.
Kiwi, avocado, Monty Python, and the ability to look half-asleep in any photograph, even if you’ve consumed a gallon of coffee beforehand, is glaring up at me from the State of Hawaii, 1444 Holamoana, Apt. 102, Honolulu, Hawaii, 5'6", 115 pounds, organ donor, expires January 12, 2025.
7 days, part two
AFTER KAREN LEAVES, LALA takes Sarah out shopping, and as soon as they’re gone, the three of us race down the hallway to Thaddeus’s room and fire up his laptop, because if there’s anything teenagers love more than jumping to conclusions and creating drama…well, there isn’t anything we love more than jumping to conclusions and creating drama.
Cake sits on the extra chair next to Thaddeus at his desk. I take a spot on the bed, after carefully sniffing it for boy odor, and pushing shirts and sci-fi paperbacks out of the way. “How many flannel shirts do you own, anyway, Thaddeus?” I ask.
“Twenty-four,” he answers matter-of-factly. He cracks his knuckles. “Let’s do it. Sister or dad first?”
Cake ponders this. “Sister. We know where Dad is right now, but Sis is on her way, so we need to do some recon to prepare. Dad’s not going anywhere.”
She turns to me. “You have a dad. That’s so excellent.” Her eyes glitter with happiness.
The way she’s smiling, it’s like I’ve gotten a dog, or a new, pretty bracelet. “Cake. He’s in prison. Let’s not forget that part.”
Cake shrugs. “Minor detail.”
“Hawaii,” I say, changing the subject. “Her driver’s license says Honolulu.”
Thaddeus scrolls through pages of Shayna Lee Franklins on Facebook. It makes me wonder how many Tiger Tollivers or Grace Tollivers might be out there, all variations of me.
Maybe one of them can loan me her mom.
I stare at Thaddeus’s ceiling. He’s covered it in posters: Minecraft, Wu-Tang, Thelonious Monk.
I have a sister. She’s a waitress. She’s twenty, which means she was four when my mother had me.
Did my mother know about her? That seems like kind of a rotten thing to do, being with a married guy, especially one who has a kid. Was he married when they were together? Why would my mother do that? Maybe she didn’t know, and then she found out, and that’s why she left him.
Bonita told Karen there might be a letter. Maybe in the house? But we share everything. Wouldn’t I have found it by now? I mean, I found the overdue bills.
Where would she put something like that, anyway? A letter that says, Dear Tiger, Sorry about lying to you your whole life, but your dad’s name is Dusty Franklin and you have a sister. My bad for not telling you about them!
My head starts to hurt, and a swell of missing Mom rises in me.
I roll toward the wall so Cake and Thaddeus can’t see the tears running down my face. I never thought I’d get so good at silent crying. This whole dad thing is not turning out how I’d hoped.
My life is not turning out how I’d hoped.
Imagine always wanting something for such a long time, like to know your dad, and suddenly you get it, along with a whole bunch of other information you didn’t even know you were going to need, but it’s all jumbled up, and some of it is missing, and you can’t put it together, yet it’s what you asked for.
The absolute worst part is, I don’t even want it anymore, because to get it, I lost the thing I loved most in the world.
I close my eyes. That feeling, the black hole feeling, is creeping close to me. I hold my breath to make it pass.
A sister. A dad in prison. No home. Living with stra
ngers. My mom gone. I can’t take much more.
Orange sparks flutter on the inside of my eyelids. I feel ready to explode.
Cake says, “Here. Stop.”
But she’s not talking to me. She’s talking to Thaddeus.
I let all the air out of my body, slowly, so Cake and Thaddeus don’t notice, my head aching.
They get quiet. I sniffle and roll back over, craning my neck to see the page they’re staring at on Facebook.
This Shayna Lee Franklin says she lives in Boise, Idaho, not Hawaii. But the photo is definitely her, though she seems happier here than in the driver’s license photo. She’s smiling at least, and in braids, not a ponytail.
Shayna Lee Franklin’s page is mostly photos: blurry flashes of people and colors—crowds at music festivals, the insides of bars with people huddled together for group shots, red eyes, sweaty faces, hoisting glasses and bottles. Beach scenes with endless sea and sand and gloriously fit young kids wearing giant sunglasses lolling around.
It seems like my half sister has two looks: grumpy and ash-faced, slumped at a table and ignoring the camera, or hopped up, her mouth roaring and eyes blazing as she flashes devil horns or the peace sign, a bottle of beer always nearby, an amazing sunset behind her, wearing only a half T-shirt and a pair of bikini bottoms, her wet braids snaking from the ball cap on her head.
She might look like me, but she definitely does not act like me.
Cake says, “Well. This is interesting. Didn’t that driver’s license say she was twenty? She totally has a fake ID somewhere.”
“Is that…” Thaddeus peers at the screen. “Is she pierced?” He points to her belly button.
“Niiiice.” Cake nods.
“Stop looking at my sister that way, you pervs,” I say weakly.
Cake says, “That’s funny. Look at you, all protective already.”
Shayna Lee takes loads of selfies: flecks of sand on her cheeks, mixed with her freckles. Hanging out with her friends, a sea of bikini’d girls with ankle bracelets and cute butterfly and pinup-girl tattoos.
This is who’s going to take care of me? This twenty-four-hour party girl?
“I don’t feel well,” I tell them. “I feel weird and lost. Empty.”
How to Make Friends with the Dark Page 14
