Signs of Attraction

by Laura Brown

  Made my own issues with Dad driving into a tree seem trivial at best. On that thought I let her go so I could write.

  We all lose control from time to time. All you can do is pick yourself up and try again. Dad always told me he acquired his mad bluffing skills from teaching. He died before I had my own classroom, before I could ask him any specific questions.

  Her eyes were glossy when they met mine. “I’m sorry.”

  “Not your fault.” Don’t turn into him.

  She nodded and rubbed her temple, a grimace on her face not boding well for her pain level. Why did she have to hurt herself by drinking?

  Why don’t you take some ibuprofen? Maybe you don’t need the OxyContin anymore.

  I sent up a silent prayer. I needed Carli off the prescription pills yesterday.

  “OK.” She may have smiled, but her eyes told me she doubted if the lesser pills would work. With any luck she’d think differently come morning. She hopped up. “I’m cold.” She reached into my drawer, rummaging around for what I assumed was one of my university sweatshirts. She’d been getting more use out of them than I had. Her eyebrows pulled together. “You H-I-D-E mail?”

  She pulled out the letter. Shit.

  “Not really.” I stared at her, not ready to deal with this other part of me I hadn’t shared. On top of everything I divulged already in one night. My time was up.

  She held the letter in one hand, the other propped on her hip. Head cocked to one side, she waited me out, staring me down until I broke.

  It worked.

  I ran a hand through my hair and grabbed the notebook.

  I received the letter the first day of our linguistics class. A little birthday “gift” from the adoption agency. I haven’t read it, but I’m assuming the person who wrote it is my birth father.

  Carli’s eyes grew wide as she read. Then she shook her head.

  How is it I never knew your birthday?

  I looked up to find her frowning at me, as if it was her fault. Everything added up; it wasn’t fair in one night so much was dumped in her lap.

  “Sorry. I’m not good at letting people in. Ask me anything.”

  Her lips curved. “Later.” Then she picked up the letter, separated the split seam, and raised her eyebrows.

  My heart sprinted. Did I want to know what it said? I hadn’t thrown it out, but I hadn’t given it much actual consideration. “I don’t know.”

  “I’ll read it. Let you know.” She held her thumb up then down.

  I swallowed, desperate to alleviate the dryness in my mouth.

  “Trust me,” Carli signed, effectively trapping me. This wasn’t just allowing her to read a letter from someone I hadn’t seen in twenty years. This was trusting her with the letter. With me.

  I nodded, and she pulled the letter out.

  Whatever the words were, they were written on a white lined paper ripped from a notebook. Something fell into her lap, and I caught sight of pictures before Carli flipped them over. Only the backside had writing on it. The one on top? The date of my birth.

  All signs pointed in one direction: Juan Suarez was, in fact, my birth father.

  I stared at the back of the picture as Carli read. Did I look at it? Did I not? I had no pictures prior to the age of three. I didn’t know what kind of baby I was, what I looked like. I only knew the frustrated three-year-old without language.

  At birth, none of that would’ve mattered. Before I thought it through, I picked up the top picture and flipped it over.

  The image in front of me was a generic hospital scene. Woman and man sitting on a hospital bed, holding up a small child bundled in blue-striped cloth. The baby slept and could’ve been any baby for all I knew. But the adults . . .

  I looked like Juan. To the point it could’ve been me standing in the picture. I had no clue what I inherited from the wavy-haired brunette smiling at the camera, but Juan made it clear.

  These were my biological parents. The baby in the picture was me.

  They looked happy. They looked young. If I had to guess, I’d say they were younger than I was right now.

  Nothing in this picture explained what happened three years later.

  Carli folded the letter and returned it to her lap, covering the other pictures. I held out the one I had.

  Her eyes widened. “Wow, look like you.”

  I pointed to the letter. “What say?”

  “What want know? What not want know?”

  I scrubbed a hand over my chin, my skin scraping against my five o’clock shadow. Judging by the photo, something else I inherited. Up until now, everything I had was nurture, not nature. I picked up our notebook.

  I want to know why. But I also don’t want to know why. Which doesn’t help you at all. I have no idea if I ever would have opened the letter.

  She pointed to my first sentence. “Yes.”

  So the answer I’d wanted all my memorable life was in my girlfriend’s lap. “Good? Bad?”

  She shrugged. “H-O-N-E-S-T.”

  I tried to take a deep breath, but that wasn’t happening anytime soon. “What do you think?”

  She held my eyes for a minute, then handed over the letter. I didn’t bother breathing. In fact, I’m pretty sure I held my breath.

  Reed,

  This letter is twenty years too late. I don’t know if it will reach you. I don’t know if you can even read it.

  I was 20 when you were born, your mother 17. We thought we could do it all. We were wrong. Babies are expensive, and my factory job couldn’t sustain us. Elania couldn’t work, and we couldn’t afford child care. We moved in with my mother. She was still very upset we had you at a young age. Refused to help at all, only with the roof over our head.

  Elania hated living there, but we had no choice. I search for a second job, and when I did find more work, Elania grew more upset I wasn’t home to help care for you.

  Then you didn’t speak. Spanish. English. Nothing. We tried everything we knew. Nothing worked. My mother . . . she said some not-nice things. Elania still wasn’t happy. I was working a job I didn’t like, unable to provide for my family. We started fighting.

  You never reacted to the fighting. Years later I wondered if that was part of the problem. But when I was there, it was too much. Elania left. She didn’t tell me; she just left. I came home from work, and Mother said you were crying. She let you cry. I had no idea how long.

  I tried for a week to take care of you, but I failed. It killed me, but I couldn’t care for my son. Mother said I needed to give you up. I agreed.

  You were not a baby. I don’t know what happened, if you were too old to find a good home. I hope you did. I wished every night I made the right choice.

  It took me five more years to grow up enough to handle things on my own. I married. You have three half siblings: two boys, one girl. I did it right this time.

  Every year on your birthday, and many times more, I think of you. I hope for good things for you. I know I failed. But maybe I did right in the end.

  Why wait until now to send this letter? Because now you’re my age when I gave you up. When I held you for the last time. When I watched you take a stranger’s hand and walk away from me. You never looked back; you looked forward. As if you knew what waited for you was better than what you had. Maybe you can put yourself in my shoes. A single father with a child who needed more. Needed things I couldn’t provide.

  I have enclosed pictures of you, and a picture of my family today. If you want to contact me, please do. My arms are open. If not, I understand. That’s the bed I made when I let you walk away from me wearing two different sneakers and a dirty Elmo shirt.

  Juan

  I put the letter down and leaned back against the headboard. Carli curled up beside me, resting her head on my chest but angled to see my face.

  “You OK?” she asked.

  Was I? Christ. I had no idea. “Don’t know.”

  She scooted up and pressed her lips against mine. I angled my he
ad, taking the kiss deeper, pulling her closer to me. “He sounds like a good man,” she signed when she pulled back.

  I raised my eyebrows. She responded by pointing to the bruises on her face, visible now that some of her makeup had rubbed off.

  I grabbed my phone.

  Me: We don’t know that Juan didn’t beat me. He just didn’t admit to it.

  Carli: My father would never have written that letter. He would have been the one walking away without looking back.

  At a loss for what to do, what to say, heck, what to feel, I reached for the pictures. Four of me, mostly on my own. The last I must’ve been close to three. It looked so similar to the ones Mom and Dad had, yet so different. My eyes were different. How was it my eyes were different right from the start? I had no language. I couldn’t communicate. Could it be, like Juan suggested, I knew I was in a better situation?

  The last picture wasn’t of me at all. It was of Juan, a little salt and pepper in his dark hair. A blonde, roughly his age, tucked beside him. Three children stood nearby, the oldest around thirteen, youngest around five. Even with a different mother we looked alike. The youngest, a girl, had a big smile and pigtails, and my first thought wasn’t that this was my sister. My first thought was whether my own daughter would look like her.

  Assuming I had children. Something churned inside. Instead of staring at a picture where I shared blood with four members, I looked at Carli. I thought of those hypothetical children I had envisioned, all the clearer thanks to Juan’s pictures.

  I wanted it. A family. Blood. Yet I looked at Carli. A woman who hadn’t wanted to see me tonight until she ended up at that party. My phone buzzed.

  Carli: What are you thinking?

  I nearly laughed.

  Me: Thoughts you don’t want to know.

  Carli: Humor me.

  Me: Family. Genetics. Only I’m looking in the wrong direction.

  I didn’t send the message right away, just stared down at my words. The last thing she needed was my scaring her.

  She took the decision out of my hands when she pried my phone away and read my unsent message. The rise and fall of her chest increased as she read, and her eyes watered. She looked at me, just looked at me, and I saw it. I saw how she felt in the intensity of her irises. I knew it was there. But like everything else, she needed to find her own path through her recovery.

  I took my phone back.

  Me: I can’t meet them. Not yet. Maybe I’ll send Juan a letter thanking him for contacting me. But face-to-face? I’m not ready.

  This time I sent the text, and Carli picked up her own phone. “OK. How feel now?”

  Regardless of anything and everything, Juan gave me answers. My birth parents were young; they were unable to care for me. They didn’t realize I was deaf. My hearing loss, if genetic, wasn’t present in either family to the extreme they’d be aware of it.

  My birth mother left. Maybe Elania would spin a different tale. Truth was, she didn’t send a letter.

  I pulled out my phone and sent a text to my mother, just a simple “I love you.” Later I’d thank her for being my mother. For adopting me. For working with me when my own blood could not.

  And Dad . . . Christ. Dad too. Pills, texting, tree, and all. Only one problem remained: I had answers from Juan. I didn’t have any from Dad.

  I tossed my phone aside and pulled Carli into my arms. Maybe I’d watch the video soon. But not tonight.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Carli

  ON MONDAY MY students gave me a headache before I even had a chance to sit down. If it wasn’t a question on the assignment or a request to go to the bathroom, it was them acting their full thirteen-year-old selves. My tolerance hovered in the negative ranges, flashing one clear thought: I wasn’t up to this teaching thing anymore. I wanted to wave the white flag and withdraw. But then what would I do? I couldn’t go back to my parents’ house, and I didn’t have a job or money to go out on my own. I needed the degree, even if I never taught.

  Never taught. The thought caused a pang in my heart. My dream remained my dream, even if no longer attainable.

  By the end of the day, I was ready to curl up in a ball of pain. Therefore, on Tuesday, I brought my OxyContin with me and took one once I got to class. It took the edge off of being a bad teacher, that’s for sure. Made everything a little more manageable. Point for prescription drugs.

  Rinse and repeat for Wednesday and Thursday. I skipped my ASL classes. Since I audited the class anyways, it was no big deal, though Gina did encourage me to drop in when I felt better.

  She didn’t know, like I did, that I wasn’t getting better.

  On Friday, I counted down the minutes to the end of the day like my students. My control slipped in my other classes as the students realized I was loopy and they could get away with murder. All true.

  In my room, I texted Reed, told him I was settling in for an early night, and promised I meant it this time. I even took a picture of myself, already in my pajamas, makeup off, last remnants of my bruises easily seen, and sent it his way.

  I followed that up with a pity cry and another pill. Didn’t matter I had taken one an hour prior. The pills took the pressure off of trying to be something I wasn’t anymore.

  SATURDAY, I GRADED papers while I waited for Reed to come over. I checked each answer with my master sheet. Twice. A tedious and slow process, but I had caught myself making mistakes. Not acceptable. I was stuck on an answer that looked right but wasn’t matching up when a strobe light plugged into an outlet flashed. My buzzer had gone off. The sound was quieter than before the attack. Without the light, I would’ve missed it.

  I scurried off my bed and pressed the buzzer. A few minutes later, a lamp by my bed flashed twice—my new doorbell. Had I let him know how much I appreciated his gift?

  “Cool doorbell,” I signed when I opened the door.

  Reed looked good. Damn good. He wore his wool jacket, in contrast to the jeans with a hole around one knee. I hadn’t seen him much during the week due to my inability to do anything. Standing within touching distance of him eradicated a lot of the stress holding me down.

  He moved to me, hand on my head, and kissed me like he hadn’t seen me in, well, a week. I guessed I wasn’t the only one feeling this way.

  “Happy you like the doorbell.”

  He removed his coat and hung it on the hook by the door, revealing a short-sleeved tee shirt underneath. No surprise there. Then again, that might be due in part to the temperature we kept the dorm at. Not short-sleeved temp—not for me, I wore a sweater—but not anything near winter degrees.

  Reed followed me into my bedroom and paused at the door. He looked at the single project on my bed, then at me, then back to the project. I raised a shoulder, feigning indifference. “I’m not the same.” With my new, weaker brain capacity, I could handle only one small task at a time.

  “I see . . . ” His hand lingered in the air as he caught sight of my OxyContin bottle. And held. I’d never seen anyone else do math in their head before, but I would’ve bet my sisters’ $3,000 check he was counting. “Pain?”

  Shit. Was I in pain? It was background sensations for me now, constantly there, a part of who I was. “Yes.”

  He ran two hands through his hair and walked in a small circle. “Don’t lie to me. Are you in pain enough to need those?” He signed fast and pissed off, but I managed to follow him.

  “I’m always in pain.”

  He pushed past me and picked up the bottle, shaking the contents out in his hand. He dropped each pill back into the container; one by one they disappeared from his hand. Then he froze, eyes no longer on the pills. He bent and picked out a bottle from my trash. An empty one.

  Shit.

  He didn’t sign anything. Storm brewing in his brown eyes, he picked up the second bottle and raised his eyebrows in question. I didn’t have any answers. I held my head high and forced my chin not to quiver.

  “You. Swallow. All.” He pointed to the
empty bottle.

  I snatched both bottles from him and put them back on the nightstand. He grabbed the half-full one and pocketed it. I spun around to him. “What the fuck?”

  “You really want to kill yourself? Or . . . ?”

  I had no idea what the last part was, but I didn’t care. Not this, not again. I wasn’t thinking about killing myself, or whatever else he accused me of. I just needed the pills to cope. I just needed them to handle the fragmented pieces of my demolished life. “No. Need pills to live.”

  “No, no.” He paced again, hands flapping, clearly knowing I wouldn’t understand what he needed to say. He took a deep breath and slowed down. “Pills not good. Will hurt you. Don’t . . . father win.”

  “Too late. My father won the minute he hit me. Again.”

  A tear slid down his cheek, and I took a step back. I’d never seen a man cry before. The men I knew didn’t shed any emotion except anger. But Reed wasn’t like that. In his eyes he didn’t hide the pain I caused him. I may have been broken, but I was breaking him.

  I waited for this to break me. My insides remained distant, cold. I stared at his pocket, where my medication was. I needed them, and he blocked them from me.

  He made a motion of cutting his wrists. “ . . . Not the answer.”

  The words came through in a fog. I couldn’t process them. Tears welled in my own eyes, and I remained where I was, not moving, not signing, not doing anything but stare at the bottle bulging in his pants pocket.

  And no, right now he wasn’t happy to see me.

  “What happened to taking ibuprofen?”

  Why would I take ibuprofen when I had OxyContin?

  “Talk to me. Please.”

  What was I supposed to say? “Talk? Talk how? Brain not work.” It didn’t. My actions weren’t my own.

  He clenched his fists, knuckles turning white, and released. Then he whipped out his phone, typed a message, and held it up for me to read.

  Reed: I understand you’re in pain. You’re not normal. But you’re hiding behind the attack, behind the pills. You want to teach? Teach. You want to graduate? Graduate. No one is stopping you.