The How & the Why

by Cynthia Hand

  Dad says, “So Boise is not so far away from home that you can’t come back for the weekends. But it’s not so close that your family might pop in unexpectedly. You can feel like you’ve gone somewhere. Like you have your independence.”

  And I nod but say, “I wouldn’t mind being close. Maybe I could go to Idaho State and live at home. Commute. It’s only an hour. That’d be the cheapest option.”

  And Dad shakes his head. “We don’t have much money, but your mother and I both want you to get the full college experience. Live on campus. Get stuck with an epically bad roommate.”

  “Okay. Well, maybe we can go look at University of Idaho . . .” That’s like ten hours away, in the northern part of the state. “I’ve heard it’s beautiful up there.”

  But Dad shakes his head again. No way. “Too far. Boise State, however—now that’s the perfect distance away.”

  And he keeps on talking up Boise, Boise, Boise.

  We get there around six in the evening—too late, Dad says, to properly scout the place out, so we’ll do that tomorrow. In the meantime Nyla wants to have dinner at Big Jud’s, this place that serves hamburgers the size of dinner plates. Dad and I still don’t eat meat, but we go along with it. Because Tater Tots.

  “So after breakfast tomorrow, we’ll head over to BSU and hang out a little,” Dad says, checking the notebook with the schedule. “But our official appointment doesn’t start until one o’clock. I am psyched to see it all again. I’ll show you where your mother and I had our first kiss.”

  “That sounds . . . great,” Nyla pipes up. “But actually, there’s somewhere else I wanted to go tomorrow morning.” She pulls a brochure out of her purse and slaps it down on the table. “College of Idaho.”

  Dad and I both stare at her for a second. I grab the brochure and pull it toward me.

  “It’s a smaller college,” Nyla explains, “only about a thousand students, but it has a good reputation. I thought we’d at least check it out. Since that’s what we’re here to do.”

  I’ve never heard of College of Idaho. But okay.

  Dad nods. “Sounds like a plan, and of course this is your trip, too, Nyles.”

  “Thanks,” she says. “I’m pretty interested in this place.” She gives me a secret smile.

  Dad grins. “And then we’ll head over to BSU. Where they’ll give us the grand tour.”

  I smile and nod. I’m woozy from being in the car so long, and ever since we saw the white dome of the state capitol building against the rolling foothills behind them, the trees all orange and red and gorgeous with fall, my brain’s gone fuzzy. I’m happy to have Dad and Nyla steering me around where I need to go.

  We resume eating and planning.

  “Yum, this is amazing,” Nyla says around a mouthful of Big Jud burger. “You two should reconsider meat. This is the best thing ever.”

  “How’d you even know about this place?” I nibble on a Tot, which is a little dry, unfortunately. I’ve only been to Boise a few times, ever. The last time I came here was when my Girl Scout troop did a project on the Oregon Trail. That was pre-Nyla. I don’t remember much about that trip, except that it kept freaking me out that I was born here.

  This is it. Boise. My place of origin.

  I could be brushing shoulders with people who are related to me, I remember thinking back then. My birth mother could be the woman at the next table. Or the waitress. Or that lady riding her bike on the street outside the window.

  Nyla takes a sip of her strawberry milkshake and sighs a happy sigh. “I used to come over all the time. There weren’t hair salons for black hair in I.F. when I was a kid. It was a problem.”

  “And there are now?” Dad asks, like he’s surprised we’ve progressed that far.

  “Now there’s Nelo’s House of Fades and Braids.” She pats her curls. “My mom doesn’t have to drive me across the state to get my hair done anymore. Although that drive used to be our best bonding time. I miss it.”

  I adore Nyla’s mother—Elizabeth is her name, but I call her Mama Liz the way Nyla calls my mom Mama Cat, and we call Ronnie’s mom Mama Sue, and we all call Miss Golden Mama Jo. We each have a list of backup mothers. Mama Liz is like super mom—she can whip up a batch of organic gluten-free chocolate chip cookies faster than a speeding bullet. She’s also the busiest lady I know. Nyla has ten-year-old twin sisters who were adopted from China and a six-year-old brother from Russia. Mama Liz is therefore constantly driving one of Nyla’s siblings to dance class or karate or piano or whatever else.

  “Time really is like sand in the hourglass.” Dad sighs heavily. “It seems like yesterday you girls had only just met. Little seventh graders. And now you’re going off to college.” He gives a loud sniffle. “You’re abandoning me,” he fake cries.

  “Aw. But look on the bright side. You can finally turn my room into that home gym you’ve always wanted.” I pat him on the back. “You’re going to be fine, Dad.”

  He laughs at the home gym idea and pretends to wipe his tears. But then he gives a real sigh. And I realize, I don’t know if what I said is true.

  I don’t know if he’s going to be fine. If I leave for college. If Mom—

  But for now we’ll do what we always do: carry on. Pretend that we’re a normal family. Even though that’s never accurately described the kind of family that we are.

  I wake up the next morning strangely calm. Today’s the day, I think, that I’m going to figure out my life. And my parents will be happy, and I will be happy. And I’ll look back years from now and laugh about how I used to imagine Juilliard. And I’ll think about this trip as the turning point. And I’ll be glad. Like everything’s already been decided for me, somehow, and all I have to do is sit back and watch myself decide to go to Boise State.

  But first we drive out to the College of Idaho, that place Nyla wants to look at. Which is in a town called Caldwell, about thirty minutes from Boise.

  And that’s when everything changes.

  The funny thing is, I can’t even really explain why.

  It starts like the other colleges. First we meet the admissions people, and they walk us around telling us all the wonderful things about C of I, beaming like the college is a close personal friend of theirs they’d like me to meet. They’re bursting with pride about C of I’s small class size, the eleven-to-one student-teacher ratio, the professors, the way the college keeps getting listed as one of America’s top colleges or best value colleges or home to America’s happiest students. They walk us through the charming old buildings—it’s the oldest college in Idaho, didn’t you know?

  I did not know. Because I didn’t know this place existed until yesterday.

  They show us the gorgeous, brand-new library. The rows of desks each with their own USB ports and electrical outlets. The quiet study spaces. The sheer number of books.

  It’s all very nice, but it’s not exactly life-altering, until we’re walking along this pretty tree-lined sidewalk down the center of the campus, the wind stirring the leaves in the trees, and a strange feeling washes over me. It’s like a backward sense of déjà vu. Like suddenly I hear a voice inside telling me, with absolute certainty:

  This is where you belong.

  At the end of the sidewalk is a fountain, and the building behind the fountain is where the art and music and theater departments are located. We go in. We meet the main theater professor, who makes me laugh so much it’s kind of embarrassing, and then he takes us into the studio theater, where most of the student productions happen.

  I fall hard for this theater, total instalove.

  It’s an average-sized space with movable seating, so the setup can be flexible: you could arrange it as a traditional stage and have the seats all face it, in one direction. Or you could turn the seats in a box and do theater in the round. It’s fairly basic, like I said, nothing particularly high tech or cutting edge about it. It’s just a theater. But it feels . . . right.

  “There’s a larger auditorium, but we do
n’t use that much. It’s too big for us,” the professor explains. “There’s also another little black box in the basement of the SUB. The students do improv and put on the one-act plays they write there.”

  “Cool,” Dad says.

  I stand in the center of the empty stage, and goose bumps jump up along my arms. I want to be performing in this spot. Standing under these lights. Right here.

  This.

  This is where you belong.

  “Awesome,” Nyla says quietly.

  I rub my arms. “Cool.”

  Dad doesn’t seem to notice that I float through our afternoon tour of Boise State in a total daze. I try to pay attention to what the BSU admissions people are telling me, but my mind keeps wandering back to that theater at College of Idaho. To the tree-lined walkway that leads there, which I would take every day on my way to rehearsals. To the honors dorm with its cute little nooks at the ends of the halls, which they call stubbies. And for the first time, the idea of college-but-not-Juilliard feels doable to me.

  College of Idaho, I think to myself as we’re having dinner at the end of the day, this time at a Thai place that has vegetarian options. Those three words seem to echo in my brain over and over. College. Of. Idaho. I munch on my pad thai with fried tofu, and I think about how C of I’s mascot is a howling wolf—no, a coyote, I correct myself. They’re the Yotes. I smile. Go, Yotes.

  “Weren’t you impressed by the size of that big theater? Enormous!” Dad gushes to Nyla and me. But he’s still talking Boise State.

  “Right,” I murmur, trying to focus on my noodles and not break my father’s already fractured heart by telling him I’m not into his blue-and-orange dream for me. “It was a big theater.”

  “BSU has a great faculty, too,” Nyla adds, although she’s been unusually silent today. She didn’t say more than three sentences the entire time we were at C of I, even though she was supposedly interested in going there. She’s just been walking along next to me. Watching me. Keeping my dad entertained. “Lots of really good professors.”

  “Yes!” Dad says enthusiastically, nodding. He’s been nodding all day, like he’s ready to give his final answer. College? Yes yes. Boise State? Yes yes yes. “You’d get a good, balanced education in theater going to BSU.”

  “Right,” I say.

  He says “Yes,” and I say “Right,” and round and round we go.

  But he is. Right, I mean. Boise State’s clearly a good school. I had almost given in to the idea, actually, when he was trying to sell me on it yesterday. I was forcing myself to imagine cruising around that campus. Going to the football games with the blue turf. If I was going to go to college anywhere, I thought, or at least go to college somewhere that wasn’t Juilliard, it might as well be Boise State.

  But that was before we visited College of Idaho.

  College of Idaho. It has a ring to it.

  “I think it’s the one, don’t you?” Dad’s practically glowing. “It’s the right price. The right location. The right school.”

  “Right,” I say softly.

  12

  We’re late getting back. Nyla’s sleeping in the back seat, so for the last two or so hours of the return trip to I.F. it’s just Dad and me sitting in the dark, staring ahead at the mostly empty freeway and the sweep of the occasional oncoming headlights.

  Nyla starts to snore.

  Dad turns off the radio.

  I’m trying to figure out a way to tell Dad I want to go to College of Idaho, to let him down gently, but I can’t find the words.

  Besides, Dad’s back to thinking about how the passage of time works.

  “It really does feel like yesterday,” he muses, “when your mom and I were making this drive back with you for the first time.” He laughs like he still can’t believe it. “I drove the whole way about ten miles under the speed limit, and I couldn’t stop looking in the rearview mirror, because I was sure they were going to decide it was a mistake, and we couldn’t keep you after all.”

  “But you did get to keep me,” I say.

  He smiles. “You were so tiny. And loud.”

  I snort back a laugh. “Thanks.”

  “I sure do love you, Boo.” He reaches over to ruffle my hair.

  “I love you, too, Dad. Thank you for taking me on this trip. I am, honestly, really glad we did this.”

  “Thank you for being so patient with our current situation. I know it’s not what you were expecting. You’re the best kid I could have asked for. Really. How did we get so lucky?”

  “We both got lucky.” This is how I always respond when my parents say things like that. How fortunate we all were to find each other.

  We drive in silence for a while. Nyla’s stopped snoring, I notice. For now.

  And suddenly I’m thinking about my origins again.

  “So when you picked me up in Boise, when I was a baby, did you see . . .” I hesitate. We’ve talked about my adoption plenty over the years—it’s hardly been a taboo subject—but we haven’t gotten into the finer details. “Did you meet . . . my birth mother?”

  He takes a sharp breath. “No,” he says abruptly. “No, it was a closed adoption, so we didn’t meet her. You were given to us by a social worker. You were wearing an orange jumper with little white ghosts on it. Because it was Halloween.”

  I’ve heard this part of the story before. That’s why Dad calls me Boo.

  I bite my lip, but then decide to keep going along this line of questioning. “But you know things about my birth mother. Like she was sixteen, and she had blue eyes, that kind of thing. Did someone tell you?”

  “Sort of,” he answers. “It was in the paperwork they gave us.”

  “Paperwork?” I’ve never heard them talk about any paperwork before.

  Again, silence. This time it’s Dad who breaks it.

  “So . . . why all the questions suddenly, about your birth mother?”

  “I just wonder, sometimes. Who she was. How I might be like her, if I am.”

  “I don’t know if you’re like her,” he says. “But I know that you’re awesome.”

  “Dad.”

  “I think you’re a lot like your mother, actually. I mean—”

  “I know what you mean.” Cat McMurtrey. My mother. “You and Mom are my real parents,” I say.

  He glances over at me and smiles that half smile of his. “I’m glad you think so, too. I’d hate to think I was your fake dad.”

  “No, I mean, sometimes, when people find out I’m adopted, they ask me, do I even know who my real mother is?”

  Dad shifts, changes hands on the steering wheel, then scratches underneath his ponytail. “Those super sensitive people, huh?”

  I scoff. “Yeah. Sensitive. Why do they always say it like that? My real parents. It’s so annoying. Sometimes it’s on TV, too, when we find out a character has a secret past or something, like when Superman finds out he’s not originally from Earth.”

  “I’ll tell you this right now.” Dad is a comic book nerd through and through. This is serious business. “Martha Kent is Superman’s real mother. I’d beat up anybody who said otherwise.”

  I chuckle at the thought of my dad beating someone up. He’s a total pacifist. “I always knew that was wrong, when they said it like that. Anyway.” I stare at my hands where they’re folded in my lap. “You’re my real dad, Dad.”

  “Thanks, Supergirl,” he says.

  I punch him lightly in the arm over the Supergirl thing.

  “Ow!” he cries out in fake pain. “Be gentle. You don’t know your own strength.”

  We reach Idaho Falls after midnight, so late that we decide Nyla should sleep over at our house, which is a pretty common occurrence anyway, and besides, we have rehearsal in the morning, so we can go in together. We text Mama Liz, who gives her okay, and then we get all decked out in our pajamas with our hair combed and/or wrapped and teeth brushed, and settle in for the night, curled up next to each other in my double bed.

  I’m almost aslee
p when Nyla says, “You want to go to College of Idaho, don’t you?”

  I’m instantly wide awake. I turn toward her. “Yes! How did you know?”

  “I thought you’d like it. My mom took me there to see The Nutcracker on one of our Boise hair trips, and I thought it was pretty.” She laughs. “Your face is such an open book sometimes. You were so into it this morning. You would have moved in today if they’d have let you.”

  I swallow. “Too bad my dad didn’t seem to notice.”

  “Your dad was preoccupied with his overwhelming infatuation with all things Boise State.”

  “I know.” I sigh. “I wanted to tell him, but . . .”

  “You should tell him. He might be disappointed. But he wouldn’t have taken us to the other colleges if he wasn’t open to the idea of you picking the one you want. So tell him, Cass. He’ll want you to go where you want to go.”

  Nyla’s always so smart. She has a high emotional intelligence, my mother always says.

  “Okay. I’ll tell him,” I promise.

  She flips over onto her back and stares up at the ceiling. Then after a few seconds she turns her head toward me again and says, “Are you going to search for your birth mother?”

  I gasp and sit up. “You faker! You were supposed to be asleep!”

  She sits up, too. “I was asleep, until I wasn’t, but then you two were in this intensely personal conversation, and I didn’t want to interrupt to say, ‘Hey, guess what, I’m awake!’”

  I laugh. “Right. How much did you hear?”

  “Enough. So are you? Going to search for your birth mother?”

  “I didn’t say I was, did I?”

  “No. But it sounded like you were curious.”

  “I am curious,” I admit. “But . . .”

  “I don’t think you should do it,” she says.

  I’m surprised and weirdly hurt by this. “Why?”

  “I think you could be opening up a can of worms. You have a great family, Cass. The best family. And you don’t know what your birth parents might be like, but they can’t be better than the family you’ve got now. Let sleeping dogs lie.”