“May I see, too?” Gracie asks.
Kat nods, and Robin hands Gracie the phone.
“She’s as pretty as you are, Kat,” Gracie says, and passes the photo to Martin.
“She looks so young!” Martin says.
“She was sixteen when she had me. She’s thirty-two now.”
Martin hands the phone to Ash. “Is she coming to visit?”
“Nope,” Kat says. “We spent all our savings on my ticket to Boston.”
Robin’s shocked. She’s sharing so much—about her mom, and that her birth father didn’t want to raise her, and now that her family’s broke.
Ash stares at the phone for a few seconds. “I’m guessing your father was black?”
“Maybe,” says Kat. “He was dark-skinned, at least. Mom told me. They met at a party. Didn’t talk much, just … Anyway, a few months later, she called him and they did talk. Once. She told him she was having me and he told her good luck.”
Again, nobody says anything.
“I’d want to track him down if I were you,” Ash says. “Just to punch him. Hard.”
“Ashhhhleeeeey, I AM your father.” Martin’s bad Darth Vader imitation draws a halfhearted air punch from Ash, which he successfully avoids.
“Luke Skywalker,” Kat says to Robin.
“Leia Organa,” he answers right away.
“Anakin Skywalker.”
Martin rolls his eyes. “Okay, already! Every superhero since the dawn of time was adopted. We get it.”
KAT
When Robin shares that he’s going to search for his mother, Kat instantly thinks of Grandma Vee and the Boston Marathon. Here he is, inviting Kat to join his cheering squad. She’s only known him for such a short time.
I’m in, Kat thinks, even though she doesn’t fully get why he wants to push himself up this Heartbreak Hill. She’s seen his parents and their house. Kid’s got a good gig going there. When she pulls out her phone to show him Mom’s photo, part of her wants to remind him that not finding your blood relatives could be okay, too.
Take the man who got her mom pregnant, for instance. Kat’s never felt like she’s missing something without him around. But maybe things are different when you lose the person who carried you inside her body. Kat had watched the vet at the zoo bottle-feed a pair of abandoned baby meerkats, tucking them under her armpits to keep them warm. All newborns need their mothers, the vet had said.
Thank goodness Kat never lost hers. When Mary King was a pregnant sixteen-year-old and had to figure out a way to take care of both of them, she managed it. Found her way to a transition home in East Oakland. Fed them both with WIC and EBT—welfare, Sanger students called it—until she got her first decent job with wages that could cover rent and food.
Kat glances at her mother’s photo again. Robin’s taken the remote from Gracie’s hand and restarted the movie. On-screen, Superman is chasing after a missile, grabbing it, and heaving it into outer space. Fighting for good. Saving life. Defending the underdog.
ROBIN
EXT. METROWEST HIGH SCHOOL STADIUM—DAY
Robin is squirming and sweating on a hard, plastic fold-out chair in the T row of Metrowest High School graduates. Somewhere in the bleachers his parents are ready to take photos and videos to send to his grandparents, but they’ll have to wait to capture their son’s moment in the limelight.
First on the program is awards. Brian—who’s still completely ignoring Robin and Martin—wins an athletic award. Martin goes up multiple times for academic honors. Robin knows his name will be called only once, when it’s time to get his diploma.
How am I feeling about that? he asks himself. His answer comes quickly—the lack of recognition from the school doesn’t sting one bit. All he can come up with is relief. Has he ever really been himself in high school? Maybe in auto shop, but in other places students like him don’t get noticed much. He’s never gotten in trouble, managed to scrape by in his classes—mostly thanks to Martin—and once overheard a non-auto-shop teacher saying, “that Thornton kid isn’t much of a joiner.”
Maybe not at Metrowest High, Robin thinks. But he had his after-school job at Mike’s and his friends in automotive engineering. He had church and small group. And now, he’s leaving for India soon. School isn’t supposed to be your whole life, right?
The principal’s reached the M’s now, and Chitra goes up. She and the other desi seniors went to prom as a group. They invited Robin to join them, but he turned them down. Mom suggested taking Gracie and said she’d cover the costs, but he said no to that, too. Instead, he spent prom night in the garage, where he’s been most nights since the Dub came home.
Parts are coming in. He’s started rebuilding the engine. They leave in a week, but his car’s going to be waiting when he gets back from Kolkata.
That, and a future full of relatives he doesn’t know yet.
As he waits for the principal to get through the R’s, he notices some of his classmates getting choked up over the end of their four-year stint at Metrowest High. Am I sad, too? he wonders. No, he’s definitely not sad. When it’s finally his turn to walk across the stage and grab the embossed blue folder, Robin feels like pumping his fist in the air and shouting, “FREEDOM!”
KAT
INT. GRANDMA VEE’S APARTMENT—NIGHT
“Straight As, Grandma Vee!” Kat yells down the hall. She’s logged in to get her grades after finishing her junior year work ahead of schedule, even in her honors courses.
After the dancing, hugging, and kissing, Grandma Vee asks Kat if they can invite the small group over for a celebratory feast. Kat agrees, and the two of them prepare plantains, greens, fish, and jollof rice for dinner.
Everyone comes. To Kat’s surprise, they’re even wearing fancy clothes, with Martin and Robin in ties and Gracie and Ash in party dresses. She runs to her room and changes into a long black skirt and heels. Grandma Vee’s wearing her Logan Airport outfit, which Kat’s realized she saves for the most special of occasions.
Take that, Wolf, Kat thinks as her friends toast her achievement with glasses of sparkling cider.
Grandma Vee’s smiling at Robin, her favorite small group member—her favorite before I came along, Kat thinks.
“So you’re going back to your birthplace, Robin,” Grandma Vee says. “That’s wonderful. Discovering your culture. We’re losing the heritage of our ancestors, all of us in this country. Languages, food, music, clothing from villages around the world melting into separate pots of color—white, brown, black. People here say I’m black, but that erases the Krio right out of me. Don’t know if it’s right to be sad over losing the cultures of our ancestors, but I am, somehow.”
“Some of us don’t forget our ancestors by choice, Ms. Vee,” Robin says.
“I know, child. Like those of us who descend from slaves. That’s my heritage, too, from back in the day, when my ancestors left Nova Scotia as free people to settle in Freetown. But even so, real people came before us, people who loved and suffered and worked and sinned and repented, all so we could take our first breaths. I’m afraid we’ll lose even more if we don’t remember them every now and then. It scares me that I’m forgetting how to say some words in Krio, I’ve been here so long.”
“Yeah, all you speak is fluent Boston these days, Ms. Vee,” Martin teases. “‘How ya doin’?’ I’ve heard you say. And: ‘Wicked hot today.’”
Grandma Vee chuckles. “You’re right. We can always tell a newcomer by how they say ‘Wall-tham,’ so I trained Kat first thing.”
“Wuh-stah,” Kat says, pronouncing “Worcester” perfectly and making everyone laugh.
Grandma Vee makes a move to stand, but Kat jumps up. “Cleaning up is my job, remember?”
Robin follows Kat into the kitchen, carrying a stack of plates.
“You go back and get the rest of the dishes; I’ll start washing,” she tells him.
He puts the plates down by the sink and goes back out. As Kat waits for the water to heat up, she
thinks about her unknown ancestors. This is the first time she’s not sure if she agrees with Grandma Vee. For now she’s okay with them staying strangers. The past can’t matter that much. Sometimes you’re better off not being defined by it.
“Do you really care what you are? Culturally, I mean?” she asks when Robin comes back with glasses and silverware.
“I do,” he says. “It’s a double loss for me. Genes and culture.”
Kat starts scrubbing the empty stew bowls. “For me, too. Culture from both sides, because Mom’s fine just being ‘white.’ She’s never searched for her roots.”
“Maybe she should.” Robin tosses silverware into the soapy dishpan.
“Why? I love Grandma Vee, Robin, but she’s not right about everything. Who cares what village our ancestors are from? What matters is the village we’re in now. Like me and my mom and Saundra. And you and your parents, and your church.”
“And Grandma Vee, for both of us,” he adds, making Kat smile. He picks up the dish towel and starts drying. “Maybe you’re right. But other people always ask what I am, and I never know how to answer.”
Poor guy, Kat thinks. Nobody around to ask about being a brown kid with white parents.
“Just do what I do. Say ‘I don’t know,’ look them in the eye, and wait. Most will usually quit right there. You need to make your face look stone-cold, like this.” Kat turns to face him with her best scowl in place. It’s been a while since she’s used it, but it’s still operational.
“You’re wicked good at that. What do the dumber ones ask next?”
Kat thinks for a second before answering, remembering encounters from the past. “‘Why not?’ or ‘Don’t you want to know?’”
“And how do you answer those?”
“With another question. ‘Why should I?’ works perfectly. Shuts them right up.”
“Hmmmm…,” says Robin. “I might give that a try. Thanks, Kat.”
“No problem.”
He flashes Kat a smile and heads out for one last sweep of the dining table.
Kat adds more soap to the brush. It might have been nice to have someone like Robin around growing up, she thinks. He’d have had Kat’s back, she’d have had his. Maybe she could even have helped him out with girls. All he needs is confidence. Doesn’t he notice how Gracie’s eyes track his every move?
She fishes out a couple of spoons from the dishpan and starts brushing them clean at the same time. Katina King might end up doing a little matchmaking while she’s in India.
ROBIN
INT. THORNTON KITCHEN—NIGHT
After they return from a send-off church barbecue for the India team—to which Brian doesn’t show up—Robin’s parents sit on kitchen stools and begin flipping through his photo album.
On the first page is a picture of a baby so small you can barely see a sleeping face swaddled in a blanket. Tiny feet are poking out in mismatched socks. Ravi as infant, the photo is labeled. Robin averts his eyes as his parents study the face of the baby he used to be.
“She must have been in such a bind to give you up,” Mom says softly. “I wish we could have helped her. But your file was closed to us.”
“I know, Mom.”
“I wish we could have adopted you right after you came to the orphanage,” adds Dad. “Whenever that was, anyway. It makes me so sad you had to wait three years to come home.”
“Me, too, Dad.”
The next photo is still at the orphanage, but now a brown toddler sitting squished on a sofa between two large smiling white people. This one’s just as hard for Robin to look at; he always flinches at the terror that’s evident in the eyes of his smaller self.
“You were scared of me,” Dad remembers. “I don’t think you’d ever seen a white man in real life. It took a lot of peekaboo games to win your first smile. But oh, was it worth it!”
In another photo, younger versions of his parents are beaming outside an official-looking building in New Delhi. Mom is holding small Robin on her hip; Dad has his arm around them both.
“We were thrilled that day,” his mother says now. “We finally got our clearance to take you home with us.”
The next one is of the three Thorntons on an airplane. “You were always a good traveler,” Dad says. “I can’t believe you’re heading back there tomorrow, Robin.”
But when Robin looks closer, he notices that the eyes in his three-year-old face are open so wide it’s a miracle they ever closed again. “I’d better finish packing,” he says.
Before he heads upstairs, though, he goes out to the garage, throws a tarp over the Bug, and kisses her goodbye for the summer.
“I’ll be back soon,” he whispers.
KAT
INT. GRANDMA VEE’S APARTMENT—NIGHT
Abdul, the cab driver who brought Kat here in March, is heading out with a big takeaway tub of jollof rice. When the door closes behind him, Kat turns to Grandma Vee.
“WHY are you so good to strangers? What if one of these weirdos pushes through the door and robs you? I’m leaving tomorrow, and you’ll be on your own again. You need to be more careful.”
“Careful? Why? I have nothing to lose. And everything to gain.” She gives Kat a long, searching look. Then: “Are you packed and ready?”
Kat nods. “I left a few things in a drawer to pick up when I get back. Hope that’s okay.”
“Of course it is. I’ll be counting down the days to see you again. Let’s make some tea. I have something I want to share with you.”
They sit at the kitchen table with two cups of steaming bush tea. “I married my childhood sweetheart,” Grandma Vee says.
Kat’s surprised; she thought she was about to hear a pithy saying or two to equip her for her time in India. But she lets Grandma Vee continue without an interruption.
“Theodore was a kind and godly man…” The low voice trails off, and she smiles at her begonias as if she’s remembering something sweet. And then her usually proud shoulders sag. The smile disappears. “But we were only married four years. He died in a car accident, and I became a widow. We had one son—”
She stops.
Kat watches in dismay as tears spill over and begin to roll down the old woman’s cheeks. If only she were better at comforting. All she’s good at is grappling. She spots a box of tissues on the kitchen counter, grabs one, and thrusts it in Grandma Vee’s direction. “Don’t talk about it if it’s too hard.”
Grandma Vee takes the tissue, dries her cheeks, and blows her nose. “I don’t mind, child. I’m glad to tell someone about them again. They won’t be forgotten, not as long as I have breath and listening ears around me.”
“I’m listening,” Kat says.
“I managed to stay in Freetown and raise our son by the grace of God and the help of a wonderful church. That’s when I trained as a teacher. Our son grew up, became a high-ranking politician, fighting for the freedom of our country. He married a beautiful, kind girl. Oh, I was so proud and happy. But then, one day, while I was at school teaching, armed thugs working for the opposition party burst into the house.” A few more tears leak out, but Grandma Vee brushes them away.
“What happened?” Kat asks.
“Shot and killed. Both of them.” Grandma Vee covers her eyes with her hand.
Crap. “I’m so sorry.”
No answer. Kat waits. She knows how hard it is to recover once the tears start coming.
Finally, Grandma Vee swallows hard and removes her hand. “I was shattered by grief. It felt like I had nobody left to love. Saundra’s grandfather is my younger brother, so he sponsored my green card application and invited me to the United States.”
“What happened after you came here?”
Grandma Vee sits up straight. Takes a swig of tea. “Got my teaching credential all over again. Forgave. Cried. And healed. But it took so many years. Thank God I found my way to that little church you’ve been visiting. Never would have made it without my friends there.”
“And then?”
“I became a Bostonian. A Celtics, Patriots, and Red Sox fan. And then I met you.”
As if Kat’s the happy ending to her sad, sad story.
“I’d like to hear more about your husband and son if you ever want to share again,” Kat says.
Grandma Vee’s face lights up. “Really, darling? Oh, that would be marvelous. It helps to talk of them. Theodore Jones was the love of my life. May I show you his photograph now? And one of my beautiful Teddy, and his wife, Haven?”
“Definitely.”
Grandma Vee totters out and returns with two framed wedding photos from her room inside the basket of her walker. Kat takes her time studying them. Miss Viola Jones was a stunning bride: tall, queenly, serene. Her groom was dark, strong, and handsome. And their son looked just like him.
“Teddy’s wife had dimples,” Kat says.
“Deep ones. Like yours.”
Kat puts the photos upright on the kitchen table. “I won’t forget them.”
For some reason, this gets Grandma Vee choked up again. All she manages to do is reach out one hand. Kat takes it, waiting as the older woman struggles to steady her voice. Then: “Kat, I wanted to tell you about my family. But I’d also like to tell you about a practice of mine that helped me survive. May I?”
“Of course.” At this point, still holding the shaky, ancient hand in hers, Kat knows she’ll agree to anything Grandma Vee asks.
The Ibis looks her right in the eye. “I try to ‘Golden Rule’ people who are around me for the sake of the people who aren’t. It’s a habit I’ve slowly put into place.”
“Golden Rule? What’s that?”
“Love your neighbor as yourself,” Grandma Vee says. “Jesus said it first. Anyway, there are a few people in my past who are out of reach, for now, at least. I’ve noticed that when I offer some kindness—something I can’t give my dear ones this side of heaven—when I give that instead to another person, it brings a measure of peace to me.”
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