Survival Instincts

by Jen Waite

  Thea took her place in her usual seat next to Ronan, a quiet, lanky boy, almost as skinny as her, with glasses and sandy-colored hair; she pulled her name card out of her desk console and set it atop her tan, smooth desk, facing outward. They each had a Spanish name—if the English name could be translated fairly logically into Spanish, that was the name they went by in class, if not, they got to pick an entirely new name in Spanish. Thea’s card read Téa. Boring. She looked at Ronan beside her, a bit enviously, as he adjusted his own name card, which read Javier.

  “Where’s Señora Pilas?” Thea whispered, though she didn’t need to whisper; the other students were only getting louder and more animated. By way of replying, Ronan nodded his head toward the chalkboard, grinned, and started drawing in his notebook. Thea looked up. Big cursive letters filled the chalkboard.

  Your substitute teacher’s name is Mr. Redmond.

  Thea had never seen anything more beautiful. She glanced at the clock above the door of the classroom. 2:45 p.m. It was already five minutes past the start of class and there was no sign of the sub. No wonder the room felt like an amusement park—the only thing better than a substitute teacher was no teacher at all. Thea turned to Ronan/Javier and said in a normal voice this time, “Nice.” Then she reached into her book bag and pulled out Stargirl, the novel she’d started the night before for book club. She tuned out the jabberings and squawks of her classmates and immersed herself in the world of the strange girl who captures the boy’s heart. Thea wished, for the hundredth time, that the book had been written from Stargirl’s point of view, instead of the boy who loves her, but she understood by now that oftentimes girls’ stories were written by men.

  “Hi, guys, sorry I’m late. Got a bit turned around in the hallways.” Thea looked up from her book. The voice was young and smooth and she half expected to see a boy her age striding up to the front of the classroom. The voice came from a man, in fact, though one on the younger side, at least compared to Mr. Jeffries, her math teacher, and Mr. Connor, her English teacher, who had frizzy white hair and halitosis, respectively. He stood with his back to them for a moment, looking at the chalkboard; Thea could only see the side of his face, but he looked just as surprised and out of sorts as her classmates to see his name written in authoritatively looping cursive letters.

  “Well, I’m Mr. Redmond,” he said, nodding at the board for confirmation and turning, finally, to face them. He was young. Probably just out of college. He had straight light brown hair, an oval face, and a patrician nose. He looked like royalty, Thea thought; his face was made up of fine, delicate lines.

  “I’ll be your substitute teacher today.” He looked again at the board. “Ms. Pilas is. Ms. Pilas has been having—” He stopped. Blood ran into his cheeks and Thea leaned forward in her desk, rapt. “Well, she’ll be out for a while. Indefinitely. I’ll let Principal Teaman fill you in on the details.” He looked down at his shoes. “If she sees fit. In any case,” Mr. Redmond continued, “my name is Mr. Redmond. I mean Señor Redmond.” He smiled here, as if making an inside joke. Thea caught his eye and smiled back, encouraging him: You can do this. “I guess I’ll start by telling you a little bit about myself.” Mr. Redmond leaned back against the chalkboard and then quickly righted himself, brushing white dust from his back awkwardly. “Whoops, I messed up my name. What was I saying? Oh, right, I graduated from the University of Vermont. I worked for Teach for America straight out of school and now . . .” He lifted his hands, palms to the ceiling. “I’m here. So— Oh yes, you, uh, sorry, I don’t know names yet, but, go ahead—”

  “Rachel,” a girl in the back row with jet-black hair and blunt bangs said, keeping her hand in the air as she spoke her name. Of course Rachel is the first to ask a question, Thea thought with a silent groan. Rachel looked like a young Cleopatra and had the confidence, and a slightly haughty demeanor, to match, which was apparently very appealing to boys in the sixth grade. Thea, on the other hand, appealed to exactly zero boys at school, and as she slunk lower in her chair, she wondered what it would feel like to have that kind of natural magnetism.

  “Rachel. Go ahead, Rachel,” Mr. Redmond said with a smile.

  “I have two questions. One. How old are you?” Snickers wafted through the room like wind blowing through leaves. “And two. Are you from Spain? You don’t look Latino.” More snickers. Thea rolled her eyes at Ronan.

  Mr. Redmond laughed. “I am twenty-four years old. And no, I’m not from Spain, which is a European country, by the way, but I spent my junior year abroad in Bogotá, which is where I learned Spanish. I also tutored kids, during my senior year and the past two years, to keep my language skills sharp.”

  “Do you still give private lessons?” Rachel whispered just loud enough and cupped her hand over her mouth at her own audacity, and the other girls in class tittered and the boys groaned and someone said, “Gross.”

  The rest of class passed quickly. They went around and said their names and three things about themselves, at Mr. Redmond’s request. Mr. Redmond seemed genuinely interested in each student’s revelations, nodding vigorously and asking follow-up questions. When it was Thea’s turn, she stated her three personal facts quickly and without emotion, hoping to pass the spotlight to Ronan as soon as possible. “One. I was born in New York City. Two. I am an only child. Three. My mother is a therapist.” She followed the formula of several of the other students and sat still, willing her heart to slow.

  “All right, a New Yorker!” Mr. Redmond put his hand up and leaned toward Thea’s desk. Thea felt a surge of blood rush into her face and reached her hand toward his, clumsily, managing to only half connect with his open palm. “Where in the city did you live? I grew up about an hour outside the city, so I made the trip in all the time when I was a teenager.” He leaned back on the chalkboard and smiled at Thea.

  “I didn’t really live there,” Thea replied quickly. “I was born there, but my mom and I moved to Vermont right after I was born.” Her hand went to her scalp automatically, a nervous tick, searching for the stitches that had been long healed. She realized that no one in this new school knew about her “episodes” or her surgeries or all her time spent in the hospital. She pulled her hand through her hair in what she hoped looked like a confident, cool girl gesture.

  “Ah, gotcha, ok. Well, hey, if you ever decide to visit your hometown, make sure to let me know. I’ll give you a list of places to see.” His mouth spread into a big grin and Thea nodded.

  “Ok. I will.” She bent her head over her desk and pretended to write something in her notebook. Her heart beat in her ears. He moved on to Ronan. She missed the rest of her classmates’ answers, replaying in her head their exchange, the way he lit up when she said she was born in New York.

  “Thee, you’re pink. Do you feel hot?”

  Thea looked up from her burger. “No! Mom, I’m fine. Leave me alone.” It came out angrier than she intended, but why was her mother always looking at her, trying to get inside her head? Couldn’t she just worry about her own life instead of constantly invading Thea’s? Thea flushed harder as she took in her mom’s hurt expression. Her mother was so sensitive. Jesus. “I’m sorry, Mom. I’m fine. I’m just thinking about all the homework I have to do tonight, and it put me in a bad mood.”

  “Don’t worry about that now, honey. We’re on vacation. Well, a mini vacation at least. Let’s have fun today and I’ll help you tonight, ok?”

  Thea smiled back and nodded, but she had to break away from her mother’s face after a few seconds. Her eyes were so genuine, and yet Thea knew the truth. Her mom had lied to her for years. A month ago, Thea had called her best friend, Maddie. Maddie still lived in Charlotte, and though they had promised to stay best friends forever, Thea could feel that they’d grown apart even in the few months since she’d moved. Maddie had asked, again, about Thea’s father: “Oh my god, what if he’s in Burlington? What if you, like, bump into him on the street but y
ou don’t even know it’s him!” Maddie, along with the rest of her Charlotte friends with their perfect cookie-cutter families, found it fascinating that Thea had never met her father—and seemed to think it was some kind of game to figure out his identity.

  “Maddie, oh my god,” Thea began, haughtily, reciting the speech she had given many times before. “I don’t have a dad. I just have a mom. It’s not a big deal. Not all families are comprised of the traditional nuclear unit.” She felt so wise and mature compared to her old friends in Charlotte. By growing up without a father, especially in a small, homogenous town, she just understood life truths that the other kids had yet to learn. And now, of course, she was a city kid. Thea continued, “And, honestly, if you had lived anywhere but Charlotte your entire life, you wouldn’t think it was a big deal, either.” There was silence on the other end of the line, and Thea pictured her friend’s face flushing a deep crimson. Good, Thea thought. Maddie was a snob. Thea couldn’t even remember why they were best friends, except that they had always been friends, since they were four years old.

  “Yeah, but you have to have a dad. Like”—Maddie giggled—“your mom didn’t just get pregnant on her own.”

  Thea rolled her eyes and shifted the phone on her shoulder. “Maddie, I’ve told you this literally a thousand times. My biological father could not handle the responsibility of being a parent. So he left. Not everyone that has babies is meant to actually raise babies,” Thea said, emphasizing the same words her mother did. But Maddie’s words had gotten under her skin this time, and the next time she asked her mother about her biological father, her mother’s response had seemed false and hollow. Maddie was right, Thea realized, her dad existed somewhere in the world, and it was bizarre that she knew nothing about him. She had always just accepted her mother’s explanation; she never thought to question the fundamental rules that made up her life. And yet . . . What if her mom was wrong? The thought felt jarring, illicit—simply because it had never occurred to her before. What if her dad had actually been searching for her for years? Maybe he just didn’t know how to get in touch with her; maybe he’d lost track of her after they had moved from New York to Vermont. Maybe he lived overseas or maybe he was some kind of famous musician or actor. There were so many possibilities that she had never thought of before and, after years of never second-guessing the fact that it was just her and her mom, it suddenly seemed urgent that she find her other parent, the one she knew nothing about but had created half of her DNA. And so she had googled his name on a computer at the school library. Her mother had spit out his full name two years ago, with the caveat, “Now you know everything I do. I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but I didn’t know him well. I’m sorry. Please just leave it, Thee.” Once she decided to ask the Internet, she couldn’t believe that she hadn’t thought of doing so before. “Joseph Graham”—she typed in the letters one at a time, holding her breath as she clicked Enter. She looked at the top results, a dozen or so Facebook listings and Instagram accounts, a lawyer from Texas with his own practice, an actor in L.A., a football player from Minneapolis. Even narrowing by age and race, she would be left with too many prospective men to make an accurate identification. Her study period ended before she could dig any further, and she spent the rest of the day pondering how she could make progress with her search. The only information she had about her biological father, other than his name, was that he lived in New York, or at least he did at one point, when her mom met him. She could try adding “New York” to her search but doubted that would narrow the results much more. Then she realized with a jolt that shot her up in bed, she could search for her mom. She knew plenty about her mother, Anne Claire Thompson, and it was possible that her mom and dad were listed together somewhere on the Internet.

  The next afternoon, she broke away from her small group of friends and rushed to the library again during her study period. She sat down at the computer, excited to test her theory, and typed in “Anne Claire Thompson, New York, NY.” Google spit out the results instantaneously and Thea scanned the page until her eyes landed on a wedding registry. Thea clicked, confused and excited—her parents got married? Why would her mom leave that out? She didn’t realize until after she was on the page that her father’s name was wrong. It took her another few minutes, of reading and rereading the wedding website, and then the baby shower registry website and then the New York Times article, to understand that everything her mother had told her about her father had been a lie. She sat at the school computer past the start of her next class, heart pounding in her ears, trying to hide her face with her hands so that the librarian wouldn’t see the mix of sweat and tears. The words from the article flashed across the screen. Homicide. No arrests made. Survived by his daughter, Thea Thompson. She was shaking so badly by the time she walked into English class that the teacher immediately sent her to the nurse, without even reprimanding her for being twenty minutes late. She sat in the nurse’s office, across from Ms. Kim, the school nurse for the elementary and middle schools, and answered in a whisper, “I’m fine,” when Ms. Kim asked her what hurt. When the nurse took her temperature, though, it was 101 and so her mother was called. Thea sat in a shivering ball on the cot reserved for the sickest kid in the nurse’s office at a given time, waiting for her mom to pick her up. While she waited, she thought about what she had seen and what she now knew about her father. If she asked her mom about what she had discovered, her mother would lie again, Thea was certain of it. She needed more time to think. When her mom finally arrived, kneeling down by the cot and scooping her into a hug, Thea’s arms hung limply at her sides. “I’m fine,” she repeated. She hadn’t said a substantial word to her mom since that day.

  Thea couldn’t reconcile the two truths she knew about her mother in her mind: one, she was her best friend, the person she loved the most in the world; and two, she had been actively deceiving Thea her entire life. She had asked Mimi last night, when she was tucking her in at the cabin, about her father. Thea decided not to reveal what she had seen on the school computer; even though she trusted Mimi, she might tell her mom and Thea didn’t know how her mom would use that information, what other lies she might come up with to skew the truth. For now, Thea would keep it to herself.

  “Why won’t my mom tell me anything about my dad?” she asked. She could tell by her grandmother’s face that Mimi understood this time was different from the other times Thea had asked.

  Mimi took a breath. She seemed to be working something out in her mind. The silence lengthened. Finally, “I know it’s not fair,” Mimi began slowly, carefully. “I have always believed your mother should have told you the truth from the very beginning, but . . .” She took another breath, her eyebrows arched and filled her forehead with deep creases; she was thinking again. Thea held her breath. “She’s not ready, Thea. She’s human, too, you know, and flawed. What I will tell you is that she loves you very much. From the moment you were born, every choice she’s made has been to protect you. Even though I disagree with her about some of those choices, she’s always tried to do what’s best for you. Your grandad said to me once, ‘Anne is the strongest person I know.’ And coming from an ex-marine, that’s saying something.” Rose smoothed Thea’s hair behind her ear. “At times, though, I think your mom has mistaken strength with closing herself off from life. I’ll talk to your mom this weekend, see what I can do, but this is a conversation for the two of you.” Thea was not expecting this answer, which only opened up more questions. When would someone finally tell her the truth? Why would her mom have lied about her parents being married? None of it made any sense. She opened her mouth to get her questions out, but her grandmother cut her off before she could speak. “Thea. It’s time for bed.” It was a command. She had never heard a hard edge to her grandmother’s voice before.

  “Fine.” Thea felt tears prick her eyes. She turned into her pillow to hide her face.

  “I love you.” Thea felt Mimi’s warm lips press against
the back of her head and then she walked out of the room.

  Sitting in the restaurant booth now, a white, hot rage bubbled up inside Thea and she took a bite of hamburger to keep herself from crying.

  “There you go, love,” Mimi said, clapping her hand on Thea’s back. “Good that you eat. You’re going to need energy for this afternoon. We don’t want to have to carry you on the trail,” she said with a chuckle. Mimi kept her hand on Thea’s back and made small, circular motions as she chewed and swallowed. The movement filled Thea’s face with blood again as she remembered Mr. Redmond’s hand on her back.

  “Mimi, that tickles,” Thea said, shrugging away. “So, wait, what are we doing next?”

  ONE HOUR

  BEFORE THE CABIN

  THE MAN

  It was nearly one p.m. The man had waited all morning and afternoon for her to come back to the condo parking lot. Finally, he screamed into his steering wheel and decided he just wanted it to be over. At least he could be in control of how it ended. The man drove around aimlessly, looking for a good spot to do it. The gun sat next to him in the passenger seat. There weren’t many other cars on the road—just the last vacation stragglers, looking to break up the bleak winter with a ski weekend. No sign of the black SUV or the blue RAV4.