Are We There Yet?

by Kathleen West

  And so far, dinner had gone reasonably well. Teddy’s scowl, while visible, seemed less severe after the second day of his suspension. Maneuvering around his sullenness in the dinner conversation reminded her of her daughter’s own adolescence. She remembered those years in the hazy sort of way that she did Alice’s newborn days, the bookend stages both too fraught to recall with absolute clarity. No single incident in either time frame seemed too terrible in her memory, but all together, it made her tired. Poor Alice, she thought, imagining her daughter heading into another tough parenting season. And—she looked at her adorable grandson—poor Teddy.

  Adrian sat between Teddy and Alice at the table, trying to engage her brother in her second-grade jokes. Alice poured Evelyn a glass of red wine, which she promised herself she’d sip slowly despite her nerves. Adrian shrieked with laughter as Teddy and Alice exchanged an eye roll. “What did I miss?” Evelyn asked.

  “A joke! The light in the oven, Grandma,” Adrian said. “It burned out.” She squealed. “Get it? Burned, since the oven was so hot, but also because that’s what lightbulbs do?”

  “Aha!” Evelyn chuckled at her granddaughter’s earnestness, the little girl a perfect blend of Alice and Patrick with her olive skin and light brown hair. Her waves escaped her ponytail just as Alice’s still did.

  “How was work?” Evelyn asked her daughter. Alice recounted a horrific client meeting in a Starbucks. She kept saying something about “postconsumer recycled textiles,” and Evelyn could only smile. She had no idea which colors coordinated, no clue about the names of fabrics. Her daughter could imagine an entire house, meanwhile, and understand how each tiny element impacted the whole.

  “It was embarrassing,” Teddy chimed in at the end of Alice’s story, though he hadn’t appeared to have been listening. “The meeting was a total fail.” Evelyn watched Alice’s eyebrows furrow and the corner of her mouth twitch.

  “You know what?” Alice said. “Why don’t you two be excused.”

  Good call, thought Evelyn. She wiped her mouth with her paper towel napkin and waited for the kids to go, not wanting to get involved if she didn’t have to, even though Patrick was out of town.

  “Fine,” Teddy said, sarcastic. Evelyn had heard that tone in her office from any number of reluctant teen clients. Adrian rested her little head against Evelyn’s biceps for a moment as she stood. Evelyn kissed her granddaughter’s hair and then reached over and plucked one of the discarded crusts from Adrian’s plate. More carbs couldn’t hurt.

  “No devices!” Alice shouted after the children.

  Teddy turned and glared at her; heat rose in the cheeks that still held a childish roundness.

  “Obviously, I know that.” He stuck his neck out toward his mother, his hands at his sides. “I’m not an idiot.” Saliva spurted between his front teeth, arcing toward the wood floor as he enunciated the “t.”

  When he’d left, Evelyn snuck a look at Alice. Her daughter’s cheeks flushed like Teddy’s as she pushed pieces of romaine around the edges of her plate. Evelyn had spied a parenting book on the Sullivans’ kitchen countertop when she’d arrived, the classic called Peace at Home. She had recommended it in countless therapy sessions over the years. Evelyn had felt another stab of guilt—a frequent sensation these days—as she spotted it. She probably should have recommended it or even picked it up for her daughter over the weekend. She might have thought of it if she hadn’t been so distracted by her pending revelation.

  “I wish Patrick were home to walk Weasley,” Alice said, referring to the cockapoo they’d named for the family in the Harry Potter books. She poured them each another half glass of wine.

  Patrick usually walked Weasley. He’s a good guy, Evelyn thought. Does tons of chores when he’s home. She’d had to specifically ask Frank to do any routine task when they’d been married. There hadn’t been any load sharing in the Brown household. Still, Evelyn had worked hard to prolong the marriage. She’d read hundreds of articles about the impact of divorce before finally filing the paperwork. But there was a much smaller body of research about divorce and adopted kids, the double trauma of losing birth parents and then losing a stable, two-parent home. Evelyn knew that even though Alice said she felt relieved when Frank left, there had to have been an impact. She knew as a birth mom herself that no one placed their baby with parents who they expected might break up.

  Still, Alice’s sanguinity during the divorce had impressed Evelyn. She’d come through. Her daughter was tough. Certainly she could bear the news about Julienne. She’d be able to see how important the relationship was to Evelyn. Right? Just as Evelyn steeled herself for her announcement, Adrian’s angry scream emanated from the front stairwell.

  “Jesus,” Alice muttered. She threw her napkin on the table and marched toward the kids. “Teddy?” she bellowed. Evelyn wondered for the millionth time how such a big voice could come from such a small person. Alice had missed her calling as a teacher, Evelyn thought, or an umpire.

  Evelyn couldn’t hear the words of the quieter exchange upstairs, but she did note its tenor, Adrian’s whiny weeping, and Teddy’s incredulous retorts. “Just stop it!” Alice finally shouted, full volume again, and Evelyn heard her feet pound the stairs as she made her way back to the kitchen.

  Evelyn pushed the cleaner side of her napkin against her forehead.

  “Sorry,” Alice said.

  Evelyn glanced over at Peace at Home. There was a whole chapter—Chapter 3, she was pretty sure—on yelling and yelling alternatives. But this wasn’t the time to mention it, not right after Alice had used that loud voice. Evelyn trained her eyes on the half-eaten crust she’d taken from Adrian’s plate, prepared to let the moment pass. All of a sudden, her breath felt thin. She couldn’t put off the Julienne news any longer. It felt like lying, something she’d avoided religiously in her own parenting.

  “I have something to tell you,” she said.

  Alice fell into her chair. “Okay.” She drained her wineglass. “What’s up?”

  Evelyn faltered. “I just want to start by saying I know it’s a bad time. You’re already stressed, and this is going to stress you out more.”

  Alice’s eyes widened. “Oh my God, Mom. Are you sick?”

  Evelyn grabbed her hand. “No, honey. No!” She should have anticipated this assumption and changed her opening. “I’m completely healthy.”

  Alice took a massive inhale. “Okay, then. It can’t be all that terrible. What is it? Are you retiring?”

  “Not that, either.” Evelyn grabbed her wineglass and took a swallow. As she set it down harder than she’d meant to, a stray drop slid down the side of the goblet and seeped into the tablecloth.

  “Then what?” Alice stood to reach the saltshaker and coated the wine stain.

  “When I was nineteen,” Evelyn began, just as she’d rehearsed, “I got pregnant.” She rushed on. “I placed the baby for adoption.”

  Alice dropped the shaker, holes-side-down. Her mouth hung open. “What?”

  Evelyn trained her eyes on the border between the dry tablecloth and the expanding red spot. “It was before you were born, obviously. I was nineteen.” She’d said that already.

  “Oh my God.” Evelyn tried to discern Alice’s tone. Hurt? Anger? She took a long swallow of the little wine that was left in her glass. Though she knew, in a therapeutic sense, that eye contact would be most appropriate for this revelation, she found herself staring again at the spill. “I met Julienne in June. That’s her name. Your sister.”

  “But she’s not really my sister.” Evelyn jerked her head up and studied Alice’s face. Alice looked over Evelyn’s shoulder toward the darkened windows into the backyard. Evelyn followed her gaze. There was nothing there except their reflections, fuzzy around the edges.

  “What do you mean?”

  “We’re not related. Like, genetically.” Alice shook her head. “Or really any
other way. Maybe she’s your daughter, but that doesn’t make her my sister.”

  Alice Sullivan

  Alice’s head felt fuzzy the next morning, which she attributed to the extra glass of wine she’d gulped after her mother’s confession. She already regretted the two times she’d hit snooze on her bedside alarm. Getting out the door was hard enough for the Sullivan family without an eighteen-minute deficit.

  Adrian, a habitual early riser, was already lying on the couch in the family room, fully dressed for school and watching two tween girls in a YouTube slime video. Alice squeezed her fingers into fists, suddenly furious at the parents of these slime makers. There were millions of these inane videos, all inspiring Adrian to make a weekly mess of Alice’s kitchen.

  “Aidy,” she said as she flicked on the espresso machine. “Did you have a reading log?” She’d gone to bed without reading to Adrian again, despite the eight-level deficit. She scowled as she imagined the teacher’s reaction to another missed assignment.

  And then her mind flashed on the headshot of Julienne she’d found, the product of the obsessive googling she’d done instead of practicing with her daughter. Her mother had insisted on telling her Julienne’s name, and Alice had started scouring the Internet the second she’d left the evening before. Not five seconds into her search, she’d discovered her unlikely connection to Julienne Martín. Incredulous, she’d taken a picture of the Green Haven Family Services website and texted it to Nadia. “THIS Dr. Martín?!?!?”

  “Yes!!!!” Nadia had texted right back. “She’s a genius. When are you going?”

  Alice had squeezed her eyes shut and pounded the couch cushion in a silent tantrum. She’d have to cancel Teddy’s appointment, obviously, but she’d explain that to Nadia later. “Soon,” she’d written to end the conversation, and then she’d stared back at the photo of Julienne. With voluminous shoulder-length blond hair, a calm smile, and dusky green eyes the exact same shade as their mother’s, Julienne had appeared impeccable on the clinic website. She probably never forgot her kids’ reading logs. As Alice had scanned Julienne’s bio, every detail inflamed her sense of injustice. Of course Julienne was an adolescent psychologist, just like her mother. They’d have everything in common. Meanwhile, Alice and her mom had always gotten along fine despite their myriad differences. At times, Alice would even have described their relationship as close, though Nadia had once asked Alice at one of Teddy’s birthday parties if her mother was always so “guarded and judicious.”

  Her coffee poured, Alice tried to quell her memories of the details she’d learned the night before, the names of Julienne’s children and the identity of Julienne’s father. He had been an attractive member of the Notre Dame football team. And talk about guarded: Alice hadn’t even known her mother had attended that school before she transferred back to the University of Minnesota. Her mother hadn’t even told her when Alice had identified Notre Dame as her own number one college choice. In the midst of her shock, Alice’s mom had assured her more than once that she’d protected her privacy by not telling Julienne Alice’s name or any identifying details. Her mom seemed insistent that her discretion on that point made everything okay. And for the thousandth time, she’d trumpeted her boycott of social media. “It breaks down protective and healing boundaries,” she’d said yet again.

  Alice looked back at the slime video and wondered for a split second how Adrian would classify her own mothering skills. She certainly wouldn’t say “guarded and judicious,” but there wasn’t time to dwell on it. “I don’t know about the reading log, Mom.” Adrian kept her eyes on the television. “You can check my backpack.” Alice grabbed Aidy’s kitty-patterned bag from its place in the mudroom even though she knew she should make Adrian find the reading log herself. Alice had a subscription to Thinking Mother, after all (a gift from Meredith, which she’d both appreciated and been offended by). But making Adrian check her bag would take too long. They had seventeen minutes to get out the door, and Teddy still hadn’t made it to the kitchen. She unzipped the bag to find a crumpled mess of papers held together by bits of blue slime. “Aidy!” she scolded as she pulled the papers out, drawing her daughter’s attention momentarily from the screen.

  “Oh yeah.” Adrian shrugged. “That zip-lock broke.” She turned back to her video.

  “But where’s your homework folder?”

  “Check the other pocket.” As Alice did it, she imagined Miss Miller wagging a finger at her. What kind of parent took orders from her seven-year-old? Still, she didn’t have time to handle the homework situation as Thinking Mother prescribed. Alice retrieved Adrian’s yellow folder, dingy with stray pencil marks across the front and torn on one corner, despite school having started only six weeks before. She reached inside for the reading log and found a sticky note attached to it, filled with Miss Miller’s rounded printing. She’d dated it the previous week, before the break for conferences.

  “Please help Adrian remember her responsibilities. If the log isn’t complete, I’ll hold her at recess to increase her investment.”

  Meredith and Nadia had both talked about the peril of rescinding recess. Kids needed to get outside. What a bitch, Alice thought about Miss Miller, and then felt embarrassed. “Aidy.” Alice stomped over to the remote she saw lying in the middle of the floor between the couch and the television. She clicked the video off. “You care about your reading, don’t you?”

  “What?” Adrian breathed loudly through her nose, annoyed. She twirled her little fingers through her wavy hair. Alice knew Peace at Home would suggest she walk to the couch, sit next to her daughter, and elicit her true feelings about homework. She’d then respond with empathy before insisting she complete the goddamn reading log.

  But they only had fourteen minutes now before they had to be buckled into the Volvo and on their way. Alice whisked the log to the kitchen counter and recorded twenty-seven minutes for the night before, though they hadn’t done even one. Then she crumpled the sticky note, signed the log, and shoved it back into the folder where she’d found it.

  The task fraudulently complete, she tossed Adrian a Nutri-Grain bar from the pantry. “Here’s breakfast,” she said as the bar sailed toward her daughter. Aidy had reloaded her video.

  “I don’t like apple cinnamon,” she said, but Alice was already racing back upstairs to get Teddy.

  She knocked on his bedroom door and pushed it open without waiting. She wrinkled her nose at the stale sleep smell, so different from Adrian’s. The room had taken on a musk she assumed was a precursor to full-on puberty. Teddy’s curls stuck to his forehead and his mouth gaped.

  “Teddy!” She’d set his alarm for seven thirty, a full fifteen minutes ago. “You’re supposed to be up!”

  Teddy curled into himself. “Go away,” he mumbled.

  “Go away?” Alice’s hair, still damp, swung down, adhering to her cheek as she shook him. “This is not happening.” As the seconds elapsed, the chances of dropping Adrian at school on time dwindled. A pain rose along Alice’s sternum. “We have to leave,” she said.

  “I don’t have to be anywhere.” Teddy pushed her hand from his shoulder and pulled his blanket up.

  Alice’s rage flared then, and she wished she could tag out, let Patrick do this. But he was in Cincinnati. “Your suspension is not a vacation,” Alice growled. “Be downstairs in five or—” She hadn’t thought ahead to a consequence and clenched her teeth as she searched for something. “Or I’m emptying your bank account! Adrian!” she yelled. “Turn off the TV and put on your shoes!”

  Finally, Alice got Adrian into her booster and honked the horn only once before Teddy stumbled into the garage, his shoelaces untied and his hair matted. They rolled out of the neighborhood, Adrian obliviously humming the theme song to a stupid Disney Channel show, and drove past the house of one of Alice’s mudroom clients. The Ramona Design yard sign Alice had stuck in the grass now had a neon penis tagged on it. Alice
gasped and slammed on the brakes. Teddy burst into laughter beside her.

  Sadie Yoshida

  Sadie sat down next to Tane at lunch again on Tuesday. She’d sat with him on Friday and Monday as well, even though her usual friends gaped. She was actually friends with the kids at Tane’s table, too, because most of them were on Quiz Bowl. Still, she felt like a girl in a teen makeover movie, crossing the great divide to sit with a “project” kid. Sadie wasn’t sure what exactly she was doing, but it felt sort of good. And it wasn’t some weird attempt at charity. It had started because she and Tane had both missed Chloe’s party on Friday night.

  “Your mom thinks you’re doing game night?” Chloe had said when Sadie broke the news. Chloe looked disgusted, as if she’d just taken an overlarge bite of the cafeteria’s tuna salad.

  “I know.” Sadie had shrugged. “It’s like she thinks I’m four. Hey—” She’d pointed at the Quiz Bowl table. “I’m going to sit with the team today, okay? Make sure Tane’s focused for next week’s match?”

  “Don’t tell me you have a crush on him now just because you’ve seen his—” Before Chloe could finish, Sadie whacked her with her lunch bag. It wasn’t a crush, and yet Sadie did find herself liking Tane a little more each day. And she knew Tane needed a friend. She’d hated watching Teddy in PE and then onstage, his eyes mean and his teeth clenched. It made her reconsider things. Like, were she and Teddy really even close? Or was it just their moms? “It is our choices, Harry,” Dumbledore had said, “that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” How many times had she thought about that quote? She was as old now as Harry Potter was when he went into the Chamber of Secrets after Ginny. Sadie was due to step up.