by Holly Jacobs
“Video?” I asked. I was struck by the enormity of this girl’s appearance. I had a sister. A sister who knew my entire valedictorian speech from high school.
“Oh, sorry, Mom.” She turned back to me. “I’m Fiona. Mom and Dad loved your name so much—Siobhan,” she added, as if I might not be sure what name she was talking about. “So when I came along, they decided on an Irish name for me, too. Of course, they didn’t really think too much about the impact of a name like Fiona. Some of the bullies at school tried to taunt me by calling me Shrek, but then I said if I were an ogre, they must be the donkey, only I called them another word that means donkey and the teacher overheard. She called Mom and Dad in along with Dillan’s parents. We had to apologize to each other. He tried calling me Shrek again, but I just brayed at him like a donkey, and then I said I couldn’t understand donkey. He gave up.”
“Fi—” Piper said.
“That’s Mom’s way of saying I talk too much, and I do. But I’ve got a lot to say to you. I’m nine, and I’ve been waiting for you my whole life. You can’t imagine how hard it was to be patient. Mom says that patience isn’t one of my virtues.”
“Neither is silence,” Piper said, dire warning in her voice.
If my mother had spoken to me in that tone, I’d have been cowed. My little sister was either made of sterner stuff, or Piper was less than intimidating because Fiona simply grinned and said, “Yeah, silence isn’t one, either.”
“Honey, Siobhan just got here, and we’d like some time to talk.”
“Okay, I get it. But you have to promise me you won’t just leave without seeing me.” She reached out and hugged me again. “Promise.”
I nodded. “I promise.”
“Okay. Should I call Grandma and tell her?” Fiona asked Piper.
Piper shook her head. The tails of her scarf fell over her shoulder, where her hair should have been, reminding me that she was very ill.
“No. Not yet,” Piper told Fiona.
I had a grandmother who was still alive. I wondered what other family Piper—I—had.
“Gotcha.” Fiona turned as if she was going to run back into the house, but in the end she turned around and hugged me one more time. “I’ve waited for you my whole life, and I can wait a little longer.”
She turned and ran back toward the house, and as she disappeared into Piper’s garden I heard her call, “But not too much longer.”
“I have a sister,” I said out loud.
“Yes.”
“The video?” I asked.
She sighed. “I didn’t tell Ned about you for a long time. I didn’t tell anyone. Not because I was embarrassed that I’d been a teen mom,” she added quickly, “but because I had so little of you that I hoarded the memory and moments. I clung to them and kept them to myself.”
She shrugged. “I don’t know how to explain it better than that. When I finally told Ned, he went to find you. Not to interrupt your life, but to let me know you were okay. He realized that everything I’d done was part of my worry for you. I worried that you were hungry or hurting. That you needed me and I wasn’t there. He just went to check, and you were graduating so he attended the ceremony and filmed your graduation and speech.” She got choked up and stopped. Finally she whispered, “It was the most amazing gift anyone’s ever given me.”
I remembered. And I reached to my neck and again touched the locket I’d worn since Ned’s visit.
“I talked about you,” I said.
She nodded. “And you wore the locket.”
I pulled it into view now.
“Seeing you,” she said and then stopped and took a deep breath. “Hearing that you were okay and that you didn’t blame me but thanked me instead, it made all the difference. I’d never thought I’d have other children because I worried that someday you’d find me and you’d be hurt if you discovered that after giving you away I had children that I kept, but you said . . .”
I nodded. I’d said that when I found my birth mother, I hoped she had a large family. “I meant it. I’m so glad you had Fiona.”
I felt awkward again. “I don’t know what to say, what to ask.”
“Are you involved with anyone?” she asked, giving me some direction.
“I was. For a very long time. But the day Ned came, I was in the process of throwing him out of the house. I’ve decided to take a break from men for a while.”
“Did he do something wrong, or did you simply outgrow each other?”
She didn’t ask if I’d done something wrong. My father and Margo—my stepmother—hadn’t, either, when I told them. They’d wanted to know what Carey had done.
“He cheated,” I admitted. I hadn’t told anyone else that. I’d just said we’d grown apart. The fact he’d cheated was embarrassing. I didn’t want to continue this line of discussion, so I said, “Will you tell me about your illness?”
She looked disappointed.
“Was that the wrong thing to ask?” I asked.
She shook her head. “It simply sometimes feels as if I’ve disappeared and all that’s left is my cancer. It eats up so much of my life. I’ve stepped down from volunteering, and I haven’t been able to write. It’s the first time since I wrote my first Belinda Mae story that I can’t write. And I resent the hell out of that. You know the first thing anyone asks me now is ‘how are you?’ I know they’re being kind and that they’re concerned, but they don’t really mean how are you; what they mean is how is your cancer. I am more than my disease.”
“I’m sorry, I—”
She shook her head. “No. Don’t be. That was just ridiculous and uncalled for. Of course you want to know. You’re here to help me.”
“I’m here to meet you and to help you if I can.”
And if I couldn’t help? What if this was it? My only chance to know Piper? What if I couldn’t help her, and I lost her just after I found her?
I’d wasted years staying away because of some unnecessary guilt.
“I have leukemia.” She talked in the technical terms of someone who’d lived with a disease far too long. She defined it and then talked about the symptoms. She talked about chemo. She talked about losing her appetite for not only food but her work as well. “I’ve gone into remission before and thought each time that it would last, but it never lasts. And the treatments are . . .”
She shook her head. “If it hadn’t been for Ned and Fiona, and for the possibility of meeting you, I might have stopped fighting.” She gave herself a tiny shake. Just a twitch of her head and shoulders. “Don’t tell Ned and Fi I said that, please.”
“I won’t,” I promised.
“They found the cancer when Fi was four. I’ve been fighting it more than half her life. She doesn’t remember a time when her mother was well. Oh, there have been those remissions, but they’re just a tease. They just show her what we could have but don’t.”
“And a bone marrow transplant would cure you?”
“That’s what they hope. There could be complications from the transplant, too, so in the end it’s all a crap shoot.”
“I’ve done some reading and it seems that I’m a long shot.”
“That’s why I didn’t actively pursue it. I couldn’t see interrupting your life for a pipe dream. I didn’t want you to come meet me out of pity—”
“Pity? That’s not what this is. My mom and dad never hid the fact I was adopted, but they didn’t share your letter until I was older. They gave it to me along with the locket.” I fingered it as I so often did. “I thought about finding you. I planned on it. Then my mother got sick and . . .”
“Life happened,” she said.
I wasn’t ready to talk about my mother with Piper so I just nodded. “I’m glad Ned came. Finding you, wanting to know you, that’s not pity. I hope I can help you, but no matter what, I want an opportunity to know you. To know Ned and Fiona, too.”
She sat for a moment as if digesting that and then asked, “How long can you stay? I imagine you only have so l
ong from work. Where do you work? Where do you live? I . . .” She laughed. “I could ask you questions all night—for weeks or even months—and never feel as if I knew enough. I promise, I’ll try to behave.”
I understood what she was saying. With most people finding out about them in bits and dribbles was fine, but with Piper, I wanted to know it all right now.
“I’m self-employed,” I told her. “My friend Jaylin and I have a business. We make apps for, well, lots of things. Companies hire us, and we tailor our designs around their needs or products. It’s not very exciting, well it is for us but not for most other people. On the plus side, I can work from anywhere. Ned said I could stay at his house, and I planned to, but now Logan’s there.”
For a moment, I was afraid she’d ask me to stay with them. I wanted to know them, but that would be too overwhelming.
“I’d say you’re welcome to stay with us, but that would be too much for you,” she said as if she could read my mind. “I’m sure Logan wouldn’t mind a roommate. Between work and then graduate classes, he’ll be gone more than he’s there.”
“He said as much.”
“It’s the truth. He’s one of the hardest-working men I’ve ever known. But he’s more than hard work. He’s compassionate. Even as a little boy. When my dog died, I was beyond upset. I know it sounds crazy, but I loved Bruce. He was older when I adopted him, and I had warnings that he wouldn’t last much longer, but when the time finally came, I was distraught. Logan helped Ned bury him in the garden. A few weeks later, he brought me a marker as a present. Logan understood how devastated I was. His kindness helped me. If you get up and look behind the milkweed, right next to the fence, you’ll see it.”
I did, and there was a small brass marker. “Bruce. He was a good dog and a good friend,” I read aloud. Next to it was a similar marker. “Princess. She’s finally home with Bruce.”
“Ned and I adopted them before we were married. I watched Princess whenever he traveled, and after we married, the dogs were inseparable. Princess loved us, but she simply couldn’t go on without Bruce.”
She wiped at her eyes and then added, “Between you and me, I think part of the reason he came home to finish his last year of school was to keep an eye on me.”
If she had looked as if a stiff wind would blow her over when I’d first shown up at her door, she looked as if a soft sneeze could do as much now.
“Piper, how sick are you?” I asked.
“Sick enough,” she said vaguely.
“Maybe sick enough that this is overwhelming and you should lie down for a while?” I asked softly.
“I don’t want to miss out on—”
She looked pale, and I saw a light sheen of sweat on her brow.
“I’m not going anywhere. Not for a while. We’ll have time, I promise. Why don’t you go lie down and rest for a bit, and I’ll go talk to Logan and get settled in. I’ll come back later.”
She gripped my hand. “Promise?”
“I promise.” I stood and helped her up and then held her arm as we walked back through the tangle of plants and trees.
“Come back for dinner,” she said. “At five.”
“I will,” I promised.
“I’ve been waiting your whole life to meet you,” she said softly.
“I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere anytime soon,” I promised her again.
I took Piper to her back door and promised to come over for dinner later. Then I walked back into the garden and through the hole in the fence that led to Ned’s backyard. I could see what Logan had meant. It was as if Piper’s garden was slowly spilling into his yard.
There was a small patch of grass on the far end, but here, near the fence, there was a row of bushes that came up to my knee. Old leaves were breaking, scattered at its base. Little patches of smaller plants grew around trees. Two of the trees weren’t much bigger than me—I couldn’t tell what kind they were.
I went into the corner, to Logan’s chestnut tree, and then I leaned back against the fence post and thought that maybe I should cry, but I couldn’t. So many emotions roiled inside me. I was happy I’d met her. Sad she was sick. Worried that I wouldn’t be a match. Curious to know more. Heartsick knowing she’d grieved over losing me. Surprised that I had a sister. I was . . .
There were just too many emotions swirling and tumbling one over another. I couldn’t pin any of them down. I couldn’t hold on to one of them long enough to truly feel it. I gave up and headed toward the house to talk to Logan and see if he really meant it was okay for me to stay there.
I knocked on the door, and he opened it moments later. He was still fully clothed. He looked at me and nodded, seemingly confirming something to himself.
“I talked to Piper and—”
“You’re Amanda?” It sounded like a question, but I could see in his eyes that he knew.
“How—” I started to ask.
“Fiona,” he quickly added as he ushered me inside. “You looked familiar, and I should have had it when you said your name, but you’ve always simply been Amanda to me.”
“Piper said she hadn’t told anyone about me. When she finally did, Ned checked on me.”
“Ms. Pip didn’t talk about you even as she built a life around you.” Logan spoke as if he understood. I thought about what Piper had said about his empathy when she lost her dog. I suspected she was right.
“If she didn’t talk about me—”
“Fiona,” he said, answering my incomplete question. “Fi celebrates your birthday for you every year. Years ago, I was home between trips and she invited me, Cooper, and her grandparents to the party. Finding out about you explained so many things about Ms. Pip. Fi’s been waiting for you. I think she thought that someday you’d show up on your birthday. It’s always an event. She sends me pictures if I’m overseas. She makes a cake and decorates. But you never came.”
I could hear him wondering why I’d come now. “Ned found me and told me that Piper was sick. My doctor ran tests at home to see if I’m a match, but I don’t have the results yet.”
“Is her illness the only reason you came?”
I realized that I didn’t owe this man—this stranger—any more of my story. As we stood in the center of Ned’s kitchen, I realized the idea of staying didn’t seem wise. “I should be going.”
“Don’t. If either of us should go anywhere, it should be me. But I meant what I said; I’ll hardly ever be here. Between work and school you’ll hardly know I’m here.”
I thought about arguing, but he continued.
“There are three bedrooms upstairs. You obviously know where mine is. Pick one of the other ones and settle in. I promise I won’t pepper you with personal questions, despite the evidence to the contrary.”
He shot me a wry grin. It was scampish. It was the kind of grin that said he was probably one of those kids who was always in trouble in school. Not detention or suspension sort of trouble, but rather the kind of kid whose name the teacher used—a lot.
I knew I should go, but I didn’t want to. I wanted a chance to know Piper. Even if I weren’t a match, I wanted to be here, close to her. “Are you sure?”
He nodded. “To be honest, when I was overseas I shared a room with four other volunteers. We slept in shifts. Having a whole room to myself seems decadent. Having the entire house seems lonely.”
“All right. Thank you.” I walked toward the stairs and then stopped. “Would you tell me how you met Piper?”
“Are you still stalling?” he asked with a smile that told me he was teasing.
I shook my head. “I think I wore her out, so I sent her in to rest. She invited me back for dinner. So, no, I’m not stalling.”
Logan nodded and we both walked into the living room. “You know she’s a writer?”
“I grew up reading her books, though I didn’t know she was my birth mother then.” I sat on the far end of the couch. “After Ned came, I dug them all out of the attic and reread all the ones I had. I kno
w she’s written a lot since then. I plan on catching up.”
“Do you know about the rest?” he asked.
“Rest?”
“Have you read her bio or any of the articles on her?”
I shook my head. “I looked her up on the Internet. I realized she’d written a lot of books, and I found her picture.” I didn’t add that she didn’t look like that picture now.
“Ms. Pip started and ran a food pantry—Amanda’s Pantry. Over the years, she expanded it and added Amanda’s Closet, supplying winter coats to the kids who visited, and Amanda’s Bookshelf, giving them free books. But more than all that, she cared. She helped. After she married Ned, they kept his house and used it over the years to help out families. Mine was one of those.”
“Pardon?” I asked.
He smiled as I said the word, and though we’d just met, I could read his teasing in just his expression.
“My mom got pregnant when she was in high school and dropped out of school before she graduated,” he said. “We used Amanda’s Pantry. But you have to understand that Ms. Pip didn’t just hand out food. She talked to the people. She got to know my mom. We were couch-surfing most of the time, and Mom worked at odd jobs here and there. Long story short, Ms. Pip offered us this house on the condition that Mom went back to school. So Mom got her GED and then trained as an electrician. Other people occasionally stayed with us for a while, but Mom and I were here through my last year of high school.”
He paused a moment and then added, “It was the first time we ever had a consistent home. It was the first time I’d ever had a room to call my own. When Mom got a job, we got an apartment, and Ms. Pip had other families stay here.”
I thought he was done, but Logan added softly, “Mom bought her own home a few years ago in Girard. Not just a place to rent, but bought it. I came home for the closing. Unless you knew where she’d come from, you might not understand how significant it was. The first thing she did once we moved her in was have a dinner for Ms. Pip, Ned, and Fi.”
I could imagine it. A small house all lit up, and Ned and Piper being invited in. That sense of pride that Logan’s mom must have felt.
