Find Layla

by Meg Elison

  “What? You saw Mom where? When?”

  He looks over his shoulder again and whispers in his lispy, loud way. “I saw Mom the day after I got tooken away. I was sitting in a car, waiting for Dr. Jones to take me somewhere. I looked out the window and she was just standing there.”

  “Are you sure?” I’m staring at him hard. This kid is a terrible liar. He’d swear up and down he didn’t eat any strawberries while his face was smeared with their sticky red guts and he was already swollen like Colomesus asellus, the Amazon puffer fish. I can see right through him.

  He isn’t lying.

  “It was Mom! I know what Mom looks like.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She didn’t say nothing. The car was locked and I was in a car seat like a baby, so I couldn’t get out. So I smacked on the glass and yelled at her to come get me.”

  He starts to cry. I put my hand on his shoulder, but I need him to finish.

  “Did she try to get you? Did she say anything?”

  He shakes his head, his breath catching on every word. “No. No. She didn’t. Say. Nothing. She. Wouldn’t. Get. Me.” He takes a deep breath. “She just went like this.”

  He points to his chest. Then he hugs himself a little with both arms, then points to me.

  “‘I love you’? She said she loves you? I mean, she signed it?”

  He shrugs, wiping his nose with his sleeve. “I guess so. She looked so sad. Then she looked scared and runned away. That was all.”

  That was all. That’s Mom. That’s life.

  “I think Mommy does love me.” He looks over his shoulder again. His foster parents look a little less patient than before.

  I don’t say anything.

  He hugs me again. “I love you, Layla. I can say it with words. I know how.”

  “Me too, Andy. I love you, too. And I’ll see you again soon, okay?”

  He nods, wiping his face and shouldering his backpack. “Mom and Pop are nice. Come and visit them, okay? We got goldfish. And a big TV. And the lights are on every day.”

  I laugh a little and wipe my eyes. “Okay.”

  I watch them buckle him into a car seat, like a baby. I wonder how long it will be before they move him into some other place, too.

  Back in the living room, conversation stops as soon as I walk into the room. I know from experience that this means nothing good.

  “Layla, please sit down.”

  I sit back in the chair. The Joels stand up like they’re one person.

  “We’re going to let you have some time alone with Dr. Jones.” Martha’s eyes are red like she’s been crying, or like she’s going to. Bert is looking at her, not at me.

  “Okay. Good night.”

  “Good night,” Bert says. And they’re gone.

  Dr. Jones and I are facing each other in two big chairs. I like her less right now than I used to. She’s holding her tablet on her lap and using both hands to fix her headwrap, where it’s loose in the back.

  “Layla, I’m going to have to tell you some hard things. You might feel bad about this news, but you will be okay even after you hear it. Can you do this with me?”

  My skin pricks all over. Nothing good.

  I nod.

  “The first thing I need to tell you is that Andy is not your brother.”

  “Bullshit.” It comes out before I can even think. “Of course he’s my brother. I remember when he was born. I took care of him since I was eight. He even looks like me.”

  Dr. Jones pulls up an eyebrow and stares me down. “Are you done?”

  I don’t say anything.

  “Let me explain. Andy is your half brother. You two have the same mother, but two different fathers.” From the leather case that holds her tablet, she pulls out some papers.

  “Here is your birth certificate. Have you ever seen this before?”

  I look it over. Female. Born December 21, 2005. In a state I didn’t think I had ever been to. Mother: Darlene Grace Thompson. Father: Matthew Sean Bailey. Tiny footprints at the bottom.

  Alright, so I was born.

  “Here’s Andy’s, which I assume you’ve never seen.”

  Another sheet, from another state. It looks really different from mine. Male. Born May 18, 2014. Mother: Darlene Grace Thompson. Father: Daniel Brian Wendel. No footprints.

  Andy’s last name is Wendel. It always has been. I know the full Latin names of over a thousand creatures I’ve never seen, and I didn’t know the correct taxonomy of my own brother.

  “What the hell?”

  I look up at Dr. Jones, who is watching me pretty carefully. “We think your mother registered you both in school with some faked paperwork to make you both Baileys. Maybe to keep you together, maybe to make it easier. I don’t know.”

  I don’t know. I don’t know anything. Maybe nobody knows anything. I look over my own birth certificate again. I was born in Colorado. I’ve never been to Colorado.

  “Mr. Wendel was very happy to hear from us. He had been trying to track down your mom and Andy for a long time. He saw your video and he knew that Andy was his son, but there wasn’t enough information in it to find out where you guys were. But once we had Andy, we were able to reach out to him.”

  How long have I been holding my breath?

  “Mr. Wendel—Andy’s father—lives in Texas. He has two other boys and one girl in a big house with dogs. He wants Andy to go live with him.”

  I’m going to hold my breath until forever.

  How long does it take to walk to Texas?

  “Okay.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  I’m dying.

  Dr. Jones looks at me for a long moment. “There’s more coming, Miss Layla. Take some deep breaths.”

  The octopus stole all my deep breaths and took them down under the sea. Plus I’m dead, and I don’t need to breathe anymore.

  “We were able to track down your father from your records. You were right, he was in the military. He was never married and had no other children. He was killed in action in Afghanistan. In 2010.”

  What does it cost to lose something you never had?

  No hot octopus. No more chair. No more soft, colorful living room. I am nobody, floating nowhere.

  “Layla, breathe, honey. Deep breaths. Look at me. Say something.”

  I let out my breath and it rattles a little. “Okay. Okay. Okay.”

  I hold it again.

  Dr. Jones reaches out and squeezes my hand a little. “I think we should continue this tomorrow. I think this has been hard enough.”

  I pull my hand back. “No.”

  She’s holding her tablet flat between her palms. She’s looking at me speculatively.

  “Whatever the last thing is, just let me have it. Just give it to me so that I can get over it. Just let this be done.”

  She sighs and opens her tablet back up. “After I tell you, it won’t be done. You’ll just have to keep living it, that’s the part I’m worried about. There is no being done. You understand?”

  I understand.

  Andy is gone from the driveway, but I stare at the spot where he used to be, buckled into a car seat, smiling. His vampire grin. My half brother. Half here and half gone. Half me and half strangers. Half mom and half some guy in Texas. What the fuck?

  “Layla? Did you hear me?”

  I turn back toward Dr. Jones. “No. Sorry, I zoned out.”

  She takes a deep breath and lets it out hard. “Your mother, Layla. Your mother—Darlene. She’s gone.”

  “I know she’s gone. I keep telling you all I have no idea where—”

  “No. She’s gone. She passed away. Three days ago, in a facility in Los Angeles. She overdosed on some medication and she died, Layla. Do you understand?”

  I understand. All living organisms die.

  I don’t say anything.

  “Layla?”

  “What does it cost to lose something I never had?”

  “What
?”

  I stand up and start running, not knowing where I’m going. I end up at the kitchen sink, throwing up on the ice-cream bowls that wouldn’t fit in the dishwasher.

  There is no being done.

  The group home is close enough that I got to keep going to Brookhurst.

  I turned fifteen the day after I found out I was an orphan for real. No more pretending. Like Dr. Goodall in the jungle, like a newly hatched baby Chelonia mydas, the sea turtle, I was on my own.

  The day after that was the last day before winter break.

  My midterm grades came back. I still have my 4.0. I put a copy on my website, FindLayla.com. I still might get adopted. Dr. Jones said it’s hard because I’m older, and because Andy’s record includes a violent incident from me. From when I broke his tooth. He told the truth about that. That means there’s a violent incident on my record, as a foster kid. That changes things, no matter how good my grades are. That and the arrest don’t look great. That’s life.

  Dr. Jones showed me the results of our DNA tests just before Christmas. The readouts look like scattered bars lined up in rows. She explained a little of how the machine works that does it. I want to see one in the lab, see how it takes our spit and tells us who we are.

  Andy Wendel is my half brother. Daniel Wendel is his father; it says so right here in these bars.

  My father’s parents are also deceased. He has a sister somewhere, but nobody can find her. So my DNA just shows that I have the same mom as Andy. Dr. Jones says we have “common alleles.”

  He has different hair from me. Different skin, different eyes. I never thought about it. He’s my brother.

  My other doctor, Dr. Yu, always asks me how things make me feel. How do I feel knowing that my brother is not exactly as close to me on the taxa as I thought he was? How do I feel when I think about Mom? How do I feel about myself?

  I tell her the truth. I feel the same as I always did. Like it’s just me and Andy against the world.

  Andy said he wanted to spend Christmas with me, but I said no. He’ll have a better time meeting his dad and his new family, and I’m sure they’re going to have presents and everything for him. He should go start getting used to them as soon as possible.

  I wrapped up a book for him out of my backpack. It’s the first Harry Potter book, and I’ve read it so many times I can almost recite it. He’s not old enough for it yet, but he’s reading so much better. It’ll be time for books like that soon.

  Dr. Jones brought me something for Christmas, but she said to put it in my footlocker or the other girls would get into it. It’s a little plastic pack filled with small bottles of special shampoo and conditioner and some oily stuff for my hair. Strapped to the side of it there’s a big wooden comb with teeth that sit far apart from each other.

  While I was looking at it, she told me that my hair is hard to take care of because it’s different. She said that this is a perfect time to get to know it, since I’m getting to know myself again as someone new. She told me there are girls on YouTube who have hair just like mine, and I can watch their videos and see what they do.

  I’m back to where I started. Sitting in the bathtub with tools that I think will work, picking through my hair, trying to do better.

  I had no father then, and I still don’t.

  I had no mother then, not really. And I don’t now.

  I had no brother then. He hadn’t been born yet, and I didn’t know he was gonna become my life and then slip out of it.

  I make a video every week now. I talk about my house. About the bathtub. About the mushrooms and the mold and how any kid out there growing up like me isn’t alone. The videos have started making money, and that’s been really good.

  Some things I don’t talk about, like Mom or Dr. Yu. But thousands of people watch anyway. They listen to me talk, and sometimes they write and tell me their stories. Sometimes they’re like me and sometimes they’re not. Mackenzie Biros subscribes, and just leaves me hearts as comments. I don’t know if Jane watches, and I don’t really care.

  Kristi and Emerson started a webcomic together. It’s really funny and weird and deep. The three of us hang out sometimes, and it isn’t awkward anymore. I can hug Bette without cussing her out in my head. Kristi stopped writing poetry. Amber Rodin started making hair-care videos.

  Everybody wants to be internet famous.

  Every once in a while, I go back and watch the biome video. I feel a lot older now; it’s like watching video of myself years ago instead of a month. In a few days, I’ll be able to say “last year.”

  That feels right. I feel older.

  Andy’s dad set him up on Skype to talk to me. He can video chat me whenever he wants, but I have to wait until it’s my assigned computer time at the group home. Sometimes I talk to him at Kristi’s on her MacBook. That’s way better, and I don’t have to be supervised. I am hoping to make enough YouTube money to buy a Mac of my own, but I can’t have ads until I’m eighteen. That’s life.

  They let Andy’s dad tell him about Mom. I told him, “You lost a mom and gained a dad. Overall, you’re doing okay.”

  The last time we spoke, just before we said goodbye, he signed to me while he was talking.

  “I.” Points to himself.

  “Love.” The awkward bat-hug, arms crossed over his chest.

  “You.” He points at the screen in front of him, at his sister who is right there and so far away.

  Nobody else knows that story. What we share is terrible, but it’s ours and ours alone.

  Like the world’s most brilliant gorilla, I sign it back.

  “I love you, too.” I throw up two fingers at the end.

  He grins, and his vampire smile is already gone.

  When he winks out, the black screen reflects my own face back at me. I see Andy there, and just a little bit of Mom.

  Just what we share.

  That’s life.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Photo © 2018 Debbie Reynolds

  Meg Elison is a high school dropout and a graduate of UC Berkeley. Her debut novel, The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, won the 2014 Philip K. Dick Award. It was followed by The Book of Etta and The Book of Flora in Meg’s Road to Nowhere trilogy. The author lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and writes like she’s running out of time. For more information, visit www.megelison.com.