Most Precious Blood

by Susan Beth Pfeffer

  The seat next to Val’s didn’t stay empty. Val could see a few of the girls talking, and one of them seemed to push Caroline O’Mara toward her. Whatever Caroline’s motivation, she sat down next to Val.

  “Hi,” Caroline said. “Uh, how did you do on the quiz?”

  “Fine,” Val said. She would have preferred anyone, even Michelle, to Caroline at that moment. She waited for Kit to rescue her, but Kit seemed nonplussed.

  “I hate surprise quizzes,” Caroline said. “I hate turkey too. At least the way they make it here. It’s always so dry.”

  “Is it?” Kit asked, taking an extra-large bite. “I think it’s delicious.”

  Val didn’t know what to think, since her taste buds had deserted her along with her sanity.

  “Uh, some of the girls thought I ought to talk with you,” Caroline said. “I don’t want to bother you or anything, but, well, if you want to talk, I’d be happy to.”

  “Talk about what?” Val asked, and knew immediately that that was a mistake.

  “About the math quiz maybe?” Kit asked. “That second problem was a killer.”

  “They were all killers,” Caroline said. “At least to me. I never do well on surprise tests. I flunked the one in English yesterday too, I’m sure. I don’t like anything to do with surprises. My mother says if she ever gave me a surprise birthday party, I’d run away from home. That’s kind of a joke in our family. I wouldn’t really run away. Just that I hate surprises so much.”

  Val took a bite of turkey and looked casually at Caroline. She had never been to any of Caroline’s birthday parties, surprise or otherwise. There was no school rule saying all girls must be invited to all parties, and from kindergarten on, Val had realized some girls simply never invited her to their houses. Caroline was one of them, which was why this sudden burst of solicitude was even more appalling.

  It had bothered Kit far more, Val realized, not to be invited into all those homes, but then Kit didn’t have Val’s large, close-knit family as a substitute. Neither did Val, not anymore. She nearly choked on some mashed potato.

  “I don’t know if you know it,” Caroline said. “But I’m adopted.”

  Val nodded. She was having a hard enough time swallowing without having to comment on Caroline’s private history.

  Kit pushed her empty plate away. She was the fastest eater Val knew, except maybe for Jamey. “I have a cousin who’s adopted,” she said. “Maybe the two of you know each other.”

  Caroline ignored her. “Everybody’s talking,” she said, and Val could see that Caroline really wasn’t being bitchy, that she really was concerned. “About what Michelle said yesterday. I know I’m butting in, but I thought I should talk with you. In case it’s true, what Michelle said.”

  “Michelle said a lot of things,” Kit declared. “Most of them about my mother.”

  Val knew what it cost Kit to bring her mother up, but it was a gift she didn’t want. “It’s all right,” she said to her friend. “Let Caroline talk.”

  “Is it true?” Caroline asked. “I’m not asking to be nosy. It’s just I don’t want to give you a speech, to tell you personal stuff about me, if I don’t have to.” She smiled at Val, and for the first time Val regretted never having been welcome at the O’Mara house.

  “I don’t know for sure,” Val said. “My father’s in Washington, so I haven’t spoken to him. But it might be. I mean, I won’t really know until I talk to my father, but … Kit thinks it’s true, don’t you, Kit?”

  Kit looked annoyed. “This isn’t about me,” she said.

  Caroline glanced over at Kit. “You’ve finished your lunch already?” she said. “I get an upset stomach if I eat too fast.”

  “I do everything fast,” Kit said.

  Caroline nodded. “Since you’ve finished eating, do you think maybe you could leave Val and me alone?” she asked. “What we’re going to talk about is private.”

  “Val?” Kit asked.

  Val nodded.

  “All right,” Kit said. “I’ll be in the library if you need me.” She got her school books and left.

  Caroline laughed. “Kit’s such a strange person,” she said. “I think you’re the only real friend she has.”

  “Kit has friends,” Val said.

  Caroline shook her head. “Not really,” she replied. “A lot of the girls like her, because she’s smart and funny and she isn’t mean. But no one’s really close to her except you.”

  “Do you like her?” Val asked. It seemed a safe question, and she took a final bite of turkey after asking it.

  “I don’t know,” Caroline said. “I don’t know her very well. My father doesn’t approve.… Well, you know how it is.”

  Val knew only too well. “There are people who don’t think we’re as good as they are,” her father had told her, when she hadn’t been invited to Sheila Kennedy’s sixth birthday party. “They’re stupid people, bigots, but we’re stuck on the same planet with them. And I’m paying lots of money to send you to a school with them so you can know all different kinds of girls, from good families, even if those good families don’t let you into their houses.”

  Val had a vague memory that she was crying. She could still picture her father picking her up and hugging her. “We’re as good as anybody,” he had said. “Don’t you ever forget that. I’m a respectable businessman, same as all those other fathers. I went to college too, same as them. You go to school, obey the sisters, and they’ll see you’re a nice girl, and they’ll start forgetting who your daddy is, and start asking you to be their friend.”

  Only it hadn’t worked that way. Val merely stopped caring that she wasn’t invited to half her classmates’ parties. It bothered Kit far longer. Val remembered laughing at Kit when she was upset as late as sixth grade over an unextended invitation. To Caroline O’Mara’s, if she remembered correctly.

  “I’m sorry,” Caroline said. “I know I’m not handling this well. I wish we were closer. It would be easier then.”

  “It’s all right,” Val said. “It’s not your fault your parents are …” she almost said “bigots” but managed to stop herself in time.

  “Conservative,” Caroline said with a smile.

  Val nodded. “Conservative,” she said.

  “I really love them,” Caroline declared. “I always have. I was adopted as a newborn. I don’t remember any other family.”

  “Do you wonder about them?” Val asked.

  “Now and then,” Caroline said. “A lot when I was about twelve. You know how it is. You’d get so mad at your mother when she wouldn’t let you have something you wanted, or she’d embarrass you in public.”

  Val nodded, but she had only the haziest idea of what Caroline was talking about. Her mother was ill when Val was twelve, and she couldn’t remember ever allowing herself to be angry or embarrassed.

  “I’d think about my mother a lot then,” Caroline said. “My natural mother, I mean. How perfect she must be. How much she must miss me. Once I even told my mother she wasn’t my real mother, just to make her cry.”

  “Did you?” Val asked. “Make her cry, I mean.”

  Caroline shook her head. “She just shouted back,” she said. “Told me I was mean and ungrateful. Which I was. So I ran to my room and slammed my door, which I did all the time back then, and I thought about what my life would have been like if they hadn’t adopted me. At first it seemed all wonderful, like my natural parents would have loved me so much more and let me have whatever I wanted. But then I had to figure out why they’d given me up in the first place if they loved me that much.”

  Val inhaled sharply. She’d forgotten in all this that she had other parents, at least another mother, maybe another father as well, and they too had given her away. It was too much to deal with. She tried to concentrate on Caroline instead.

  Caroline stared down at her plate. “I’ve always known I was adopted,” she said. “My parents never lied to me about it. I had all the books too, all the picture books an
d story books and nonfiction books about being adopted. And my parents really love me. So do my grandparents. They never treated me any differently from their other grandchildren. Believe me, when I was twelve, I was looking for slights, and there just weren’t any.”

  “What are you saying?” Val asked. “That it’s okay to be adopted?”

  “I’m not sure what I’m saying,” Caroline replied. “I guess I feel bad for you because of how you learned it. I’m glad I’ve always known. My parents brought me up to feel special just because I am adopted. I’m glad my mother screamed at me that day, instead of crying. I knew then she really was my mother, because mothers get mad at their kids, and they scream, and they don’t always let them have what they want. I don’t know how I’d feel if someone just told me out of the blue that I was adopted. I think it would terrify me.”

  “I’m not terrified,” Val said. “I don’t even know for sure that it is true.”

  “I think it must be,” Caroline said. “From the way Michelle’s behaving. You can tell she knows she did something terrible, but she’s so defensive about it. She won’t say it’s a lie though. I think if it was, she’d be admitting it to everybody.”

  “True or not, she shouldn’t have said it,” Val declared. “At least not here, not in public. It’s a family matter, and it should be kept private.”

  “I guess that’s why she feels so bad,” Caroline said. “Not just telling you, but telling you in public.”

  Caroline’s father was a banker. Her mother played golf. Val had driven past their house often enough to know they had beautiful flowerbeds in front. They had less land than the Castaladis, but their yard seemed larger, because they had no gate around it.

  “How were you adopted?” Val asked. “Do you know?”

  “From an agency,” Caroline said. “My parents showed me all the paperwork. I don’t know anything about my mother, my natural mother I mean, except her family medical history, which looked pretty boring to me. I guess I’ll care more about that when I have babies.”

  “Do you want to know?” Val asked.

  “Sometimes,” Caroline said. “But not as much as you might think. I haven’t even thought about her in a year or so. Things have been going so well in my life. My mother turned out to be okay, once I stopped being twelve. I’m glad I was adopted through an agency though. I like the fact that it was a traditional adoption, nothing gray market about it.”

  “Gray market,” Val said. “What’s that?”

  “You know,” Caroline said. “Not done through an agency. Lawyers handle it instead, or doctors. Or a couple puts an ad in the paper and hopes some pregnant woman will see it and contact them. Lots of adoptions are done that way nowadays. But you know my father, old straight-and-narrow. My parents waited five years before the agency came through with me. Five years. But they didn’t have to worry that maybe it wasn’t completely legal or the mother might change her mind the minute she gave birth. And I like the fact my natural mother went through an agency too. It makes me feel respectable, like my parents.”

  “Five years is a long time to wait,” Val said. “I guess your mother must have known about it. The adoption I mean.”

  Caroline gave her a funny look. “Of course she did. Mothers always know. You think fathers just bring babies home and hand them over? It never works that way.”

  Val nodded. “I guess I wasn’t thinking,” she said. “This whole business has been real upsetting. Just being this angry at Michelle is upsetting. And I’ve never really thought about adoption before.”

  Caroline looked away from Val, then turned back to face her. “You might as well know what they’re saying,” she declared. “You’ll hear it anyway, and I don’t think Kit will tell you.”

  “What?” Val asked. “What are they saying?” What could be left to say?

  “I’m sure it isn’t true,” Caroline said. “Michelle certainly hasn’t said it. It’s just a rumor. You know how rumors are. Maybe I shouldn’t even tell you.”

  “You began already, so finish,” Val said.

  Caroline nodded. “They’re saying, well, because of who your father is, they’re saying maybe you weren’t adopted,” she replied. “Not the way I was, I mean. They’re saying maybe your parents were so desperate for a baby, they did something illegal to get one.”

  “Illegal?” Val asked.

  “Kidnapping,” Caroline said. “Maybe they kidnapped a baby. Or even killed someone to get one. I’m sure they’re wrong. I mean, how could they know, unless Michelle said something, and she didn’t. Or maybe Kit, and she certainly didn’t. It’s just gossip because of your father’s reputation.”

  “What reputation?” Val asked, even though she knew the answer.

  “That he’s connected,” Caroline said. “With the mob. Well, you know.”

  Val nodded. In a life filled with things she wasn’t supposed to know, that was the one thing she did.

  Caroline got up. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ve probably handled all this really badly. The other girls, they just thought we should talk, because I’m adopted, and now I guess you are too. And I’m sure when you talk to your father, you’ll find out everything is okay. That you were adopted from an agency, the same as me, I mean. I don’t think you were kidnapped. I probably never should have even mentioned it.”

  “No,” Val said. “You probably shouldn’t have.”

  Caroline gave Val a look so strange it took her a moment to realize it was fear. “Forget I said anything, all right,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean it.”

  Val nodded. She watched as Caroline ran back to her safe circle of friends, the girls who never invited Val to their parties. Then she looked down at the half-eaten remains of her lunch, and willed herself to ignore the horror that was growing like a tumor inside her.

  Chapter 5

  Kit kept her distance from Val the rest of the school day, but Val didn’t mind. When the final bell rang, Val walked over to her and said, “I want to go to your house.”

  “That’s not such a good idea,” Kit replied, looking down at her desk.

  Val was aware that everyone in the classroom, including Sister Gina Marie, was staring at her. “Please,” she whispered. “I can’t go home.”

  Kit looked up. “All right,” she said. She followed Val out of the room and to their lockers. Val noticed Michelle standing by hers, looking ill at ease. She wished worse than that for Michelle. She wished her half the pain she was currently feeling.

  She and Kit walked out of the school silently, and found Bruno waiting for them. “I’m going to Kit’s,” Val told him.

  “Fine,” Bruno said. “Hop in, girls.”

  So they did. Kit stared out the window. Val asked Bruno how his day had been.

  “Average,” Bruno replied, which was the best Val could hope for. An average day meant he hadn’t spent it worrying about her. And that meant another day before she would have to confront her father. Or was he her kidnapper?

  Bruno dropped them off in front of the Farrell house. He never drove off until he was sure Val was safely inside. This time was no exception.

  “There’s a guy out there,” he said, pointing toward Kit’s front door. “Want me to check him out?”

  “It’s all right,” Kit said. “Just my cousin. Thanks anyway, Bruno.”

  “I’ll wait around,” Bruno said. “Just to be on the safe side.”

  Val got out of the car. She felt past the point of needing protection. “Your cousin?” she asked Kit.

  “My cousin,” Kit replied. “I invited him over this morning. I didn’t know you’d be coming over.”

  Val felt hurt, even though she knew it was irrational. Somehow she felt Kit should have known she would need her. “Why did you ask him?” she said. “I didn’t know you were that close to any of your cousins.”

  “Hi, Malcolm!” Kit shouted at him. Val could see he was young, maybe a year or two older than they were. He had a preppy look to him. She remembered Kit referrin
g to a cousin who was going to college nearby. The Farrells had had him over for dinner a couple of times.

  “Hi, Kit!” he called back. That seemed to satisfy Bruno, who finally drove off. Val almost cried for him to come back and get her. She felt that Kit was cutting her off too, that the last part of her life that was secure and reliable was being lost to her.

  “You’re early,” Kit said to her cousin as she reached the front door. She took out her keys and unlocked it.

  “My class was cancelled,” Malcolm replied. “So I figured I’d come straight over. I’ve only been waiting a couple of minutes.”

  “This is Val,” Kit said. “Val Castaladi. Val, this is my cousin, Malcolm Scott.”

  “It’s nice to meet you,” Val said.

  “Good meeting you,” Malcolm said. He smiled, and Val could see he was good-looking. Light brown hair, blue eyes. He didn’t look anything like a Farrell, so he must come from Amanda’s side of the family.

  “I did a lot of work on the house last night, but I couldn’t fix everything,” Kit said. “The kitchen’s in okay shape, but, the more I looked, the more I saw Mother had done. And Pop didn’t get in until really late last night. So the living room still has some problems. But we can sit down in it and everything. It’s just I had to take down some of the paintings, so they’re on the floor.” She smiled apologetically.

  “It looks fine to me,” Malcolm said. “I guess Jamey’ll use it as an excuse to buy some new paintings.”

  “I don’t know,” Kit said. “I don’t think so. I don’t think the insurance is going to cover the damage, since Mother did it, and the clinic she’s at is real expensive.”

  “Oh,” Malcolm said. “Sorry.”

  “It’s not the end of the world,” Kit replied. “Would either of you like something to drink?”

  “Ginger ale, if you have it,” Malcolm said. He sat down on the sofa, beside a blank wall. Val remembered the painting that had hung there. It wasn’t the one she’d seen slashed the day before. Amanda must really have gone mad on Sunday.