I dig my fingers into my hair and pull. By the time the dust settles, I’ll have no fingernails and no hair and probably very little sanity left. “Why did you have to lie to me?”
I glance at each of them for just a moment and no more.
Mamma, then Tristan, then Daddy.
There are no more answers to be found here. And for all that I’ve been kept in the dark about this thing that affects literally only me, so has Tristan.
I expected him to fight them with me. To dig with me. I thought that’s what the list was. Yet he seems … placated. He seems okay with what’s happened during this entire conversation tonight. I needed him to be the one to get it with me, but I watched him nod along with Mamma and Daddy as though her tearful monologue was just the balm he needed.
And now that leaves me. Me and this guy. Merrick. Unless he’s the one who sent the box.
It dawns on me how badly I don’t want that to be the case. If he knew and sent the box, but didn’t try to reach out or see me or … anything, that would be screwed up on so many levels.
But also, what if he isn’t the one who sent the box?
What if he’s still in the dark about this too? What if …
I look up, finally breaking the room’s murky silence. “I think … I want to talk to Merrick.”
Daddy clears his throat.
Mamma sobs.
It is the loudest I’ve ever heard her cry and I don’t care. I can’t. I don’t have the energy for this anymore. I cross my fingers, tap them against my thigh. It’s hard to care about anything except myself right now.
Mamma speaks with a hand pressed against her lips. “Angel,” she says, “we don’t even know where he is or how to locate him or how to find him or if he’d even be willing to—”
“No. You’re not listening to me. I need to find him. Because if he and I were the only ones lied to about this, then I can imagine how he might feel finding out after all this time. And if he didn’t send that stupid box, then I want to know who did. I am not comfortable not knowing things about myself. And I am not trusting you two to tell me the truth.”
Daddy adjusts his stance, removing his watch and rolling his sleeves up. “Tasia, listen—”
But I don’t let him get a word in. I’m on a roll and I can’t be stopped. “Not anymore. You had eighteen years to come clean with me. So no, I won’t listen to what you have to say. Because, apparently, I can’t trust it.” I glance at Mamma. “That ship sailed yesterday when you tried to hide that box from me. He needs to know.”
I mean, personally, I’d want to know if I had a whole-ass kid out there somewhere.
Tristan’s head cuts to me. “Why?”
“What?” I say.
“Why do you need him to know so bad?”
I shake my head, confused. What’s he even asking? He’s looking me right in the eye, holding my stare for what feels like days, weeks, months, before he finally turns and leaves.
Before I do the same, I exhale, face Mamma, and say, “I want that box.”
“Angel—”
“No angel, Mom. I need that box. I’m going to find him. And you’re not going to hold me back, because this is a decision I’m making for myself. Independent of you. Which is how you raised me to be.”
Mamma, shaky and tearstained, leaves and returns with the box less than a minute later, during which time Daddy and I don’t speak.
He doesn’t even look at me. I know, because I can’t look away from him.
I can’t believe I didn’t see it all this time. How not alike we are.
Mamma sets the box down in front of me on the squat coffee table she and I, once upon a time, found at Goodwill.
I don’t say thank you before I pull the box slowly into my arms, cradling it like it is my anchor to this reality, and make my way upstairs to my room.
The door shuts with a definitive click, and I twist the knob’s lock before sliding the box under my bed.
When I’m ready—when I can breathe again—I’m going to find him.
I’m going to find this guy, find out if he’s the one who sent this box. If he’s the one who took a lit match and kerosene to my entire world.
Chapter Six
My family doesn’t do meals together unless we’re obligated by some outside party, like Mamma’s colleagues or Daddy’s partners at the firm or, I don’t know, whatever morality comes with holiday cheer.
None of that changes by the evening. But I still come downstairs, planning to eat my body weight in the apple-and-cinnamon granola bars that Tammy makes from scratch in lieu of the carb-heavy dinner that’s on the stove. Trist, seated at the table, eats a bowl of pasta fit for someone three times his size. Usually he does this with a copy of some digest mag or even the newspaper—which I don’t actually believe he reads.
Mamma’s not around. Probably putting out some corporate fire at the office. She won’t be home anytime soon. It’s late now, about eight p.m.
Daddy, I know, is prepping for a big court case Monday morning.
I grab three of the frosted squares and pile them onto a plate.
“Hey,” I say. I pull out a chair at the table and sit next to Tristan. He glances up from the folded-over book he’s reading.
“Hi?”
I smile at him and it feels much creepier than I hope it appears.
“Stop forcing it,” he says. Tristan is nothing if not direct.
Fighting hard not to dissect the granola bar before I eat it, I ask, “Am I? Forcing it? Does this feel forced?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
He sets his book down. He’s agitated. I can see it in the set of his shoulders, the loosening of his jaw. “When’s the last time you ate at this table?”
Thanksgiving. Two years ago. “I don’t know. How would I know that?”
“Aha. And you just sat here. Next to me. And you said ‘hey,’ like we needed to make conversation.”
My head falls back. “I don’t see how switching things up is so awful, Trist.”
“Right. Switching things up. Just relax. Stop forcing it. If you need to talk, call Slim.”
“I can’t talk to Slim.” I can’t tell Slim about this until I’m ready to talk the subject into the ground. Slim is a fixer too. And in order to fix, she needs to ask questions. Which would be fine, if I had any actual answers. She doesn’t understand that sometimes you just need to sit with your turmoil and let it stew.
Trist shovels food into his mouth like it’s going to run off his fork. “Why not.” Not a question. Tone dry. He doesn’t care.
“Because she wouldn’t get it.”
“Fine. You think you need a professional to get it—tell Mamma to call Dr. Viseri.”
Dr. Viseri is the family shrink Mamma made us see when our Uncle Lawrence died last year. Some police brutality dispute that she swore was going to affect us. So we all saw Dr. Viseri once a week for about a month straight, because she was right. It did affect us.
Tristan thinks I need a shrink. I don’t.
“I don’t need a shrink, Trist.”
“Then, chill, Tasia. Jesus. I’m trying to read, so can you, like, go?”
I stand. The two bites of granola I’ve taken are like tar crumbles in my mouth now.
I make it far enough to dump my granola bars back onto their tray before Trist says, “Hey.” So I turn to him. “You’re my sister, okay? You’re my sister no matter what. I don’t see why anything has to change. Why we can’t just pretend like this never happened.”
Pretend like this never happened. Pretend like I’m not different than who I always thought I was. Pretend like I’m not broken down into racial fractions now, instead of a whole part of this family.
It strikes me that he totally and completely does not get it.
“I don’t think …” I start, unsure about how I should navigate this. I hate feeling unprepared. “I don’t think you understand what this means for me.”
“What’s there to get,
Tasia? Why does it have to mean anything? Who cares about that guy.”
I don’t. But I might. Or I could.
“What if I could be better, though?” A better person for knowing him.
“Better how? Teez. If this box had never showed up, you’d have been entirely the same. Your life would have continued to be as full as it’s always been. Why does that have to change?”
I shrug. It makes sense, I guess. “I don’t know. It doesn’t, but … .” But he doesn’t get it.
I turn around and walk upstairs to my room before any more words make it out of my mouth.
As I pace circles around my room, I’m unable to settle on one thing. Netflix requires too much quiet, too much sitting still. Reading isn’t a thing I ever really do by choice. Homework … well, obviously I’m not going there. I start to fold the clean laundry in my basket but then stop because I realize I’m too tired to do that.
Thoughts are coming too fast. Every time I decide I want to do one thing, I get distracted by another thought.
Predominantly, thoughts about the box under my bed.
I wanted to wait to look through it. I don’t know why. It just feels like I should. It feels like I should give myself more time. But what will time do? All the waiting in the world could never have prepared me for any of this.
In the work of a moment, I’m diving to reach under the bed, pulling the box out, and glancing over my shoulder toward my open bedroom door as though I’m about to start my very first Google search for porn.
That was years ago, and anyway, it didn’t make me feel nearly as suspect as all this.
Still, I slide across my wooden floor and kick the door shut with a sock-covered foot.
The box, I hadn’t noticed before, is actually very pretty. Vintage in the way of things that is almost signature to Europe. The flowers on it are curling and arching and delicate.
I set the top aside and rifle through the box’s contents. At one point, they might have seen some semblance of order. Now, pages are crumpled, bent, and even ripped in some places. There’s evidence of Mamma’s struggle with this thing.
I’m looking at a copy of my third grade class photo, smiling at all that wild hair and the gaps in my teeth, when I see the Polaroid. Mamma and him. Merrick.
It’s not hard to have his name come up. It’s actually just a little bit too easy.
“Merrick,” I whisper to myself.
There’s an envelope inside filled with more pictures. Most of them are clippings from the local paper, overviews and short stops in time, from fundraisers Mamma has organized or launch parties or dinners with Daddy’s law firm partners.
When your family comes into money as fast as mine did—when they are not white, blond-haired, and blue-eyed—and achieving things no one ever thought they would, people sit up and take notice.
They mark that kind of success down in concrete ways.
I’m skimming through the manila envelope’s contents when I start to notice how most of the clippings are cut, and a few of them have a section of the image ripped off. Like, torn by hand. The piece that’s missing?
Me.
There’s one photo of all of us. Tristan, Daddy, Mamma, and I distinctly remember me, right there on the edge.
Except now I’m not there. I’m missing from at least four of these torn photos.
On a whim, I reach up to my desk and drag my laptop off of it. It’s the work of moments to boot it up, load up Safari, and hit Google.
I type in his first name slowly, making sure I’ve spelled it right and, even though it’s definitely not necessary, capitalized everything correctly.
The results for him are stunning. His web page is one of the first things that come up in my search. I know it’s him because his face has changed very little from the Polaroids.
MerrickdAuquin.com
He’s a musician. Or, like, a composer, I think?
I don’t hesitate even a second. I click the link and follow it through, browsing his gallery first, which has a scant number of photos of him. He’s aged, sure. But that same boyish face is still there. One of the eight available photos is of him in a music studio, and there’s one where he’s standing on what looks like a concert hall stage, one of him at a piano, smiling.
I have his smile, the way it leans to one side sans permission.
In the uppermost right-hand corner of the page is his contact link. It leads me to a page where I can fill in my name, email address, and enter a brief message.
It’s not the doing that halts me. I have no problem sending him this message right now.
It’s what I send him that gets to me.
I lie. I create the fake email. Say I’m interested in buying a piece he’s composed for a film I’m producing. I don’t use “Tasia Quirk” for the name portion. Instead, I use “Lynn Strange.”
It’s corny as hell, but that’s what I settle on.
I count backwards from three, and then hit submit.
My hands immediately start to sweat in that gross way where your palms start to smell like warm pennies. I decide then and there that I can’t go back to the box today.
I’ve done enough, pushed myself far enough.
Placing the lid back on the box is almost an act of aggression, I slam it on so hard. It’s almost as though it’s done something to offend me.
Other than tear my family apart.
Chapter Seven
I used to wish I was adopted. In fourth grade, Anna Takahashi joined us—the new girl in class—and told us how her foster parents of two years had officially adopted her the week prior.
She talked nonstop about how her mom was a surgeon and her dad stayed at home and how, as an adoption present, they’d gotten her a dog and how she’d named the dog Rebecca, which, to me, seemed really stupid and unfair to the dog.
Anyway, kids at school loved her. She was adopted. So that weekend, after my Saturday morning kids’ soccer game, I went home with Slim and badgered her parents about maybe adopting me.
Tasia Lim didn’t sound nearly as good as Tasia Quirk, but I’d get used to it.
Her dad humored me. Drew up a contract on a brown paper napkin. Told me to have my parents sign it and bring it back.
They did.
That Monday, I went to school and told everyone I was adopted. I was Slim Lim’s sister now.
It was great, until I realized that Slim’s mother had never been very kind—not just to me, but to anyone, including Slim—and I remembered how Mamma had mentioned us going on the Disney cruise over the upcoming spring break. It was meant to be a family trip. I remembered how great my bed was in comparison to Slim’s, which had always been just a smidge too high for me to climb up on gracefully. I remembered the big family reunion we’d had back in NOLA. It was probably the most fun trip I had ever or would ever take.
Being a Lim meant I wouldn’t get to be part of any of those things. Didn’t it? Being a Lim meant I wouldn’t get to be a Quirk.
Needless to say, I went home after school that day and begged Mamma to undo the adoption.
She did.
I learned a lesson. And eventually, I’d come to understand that isn’t how adoption works. There are definitely no brown Taco Bell napkins involved.
And so, even now, lying in bed, listening to Mamma and Daddy have the world’s most stilted conversation, I still wouldn’t wish for a different family. I don’t think I would trade them, even after they’ve lied to me and changed everything.
Would I?
It takes a very slow minute for me to wonder … What if I’m better equipped to handle a new family now?
What if the Lims weren’t a good fit for me, but the d’Auquins are? What if there is more than one d’Auquin? What if Merrick is married and has other kids. What if he has two dozen older siblings. What if he’s gay!
I hear the stairs creak as Mamma and Daddy make their way upstairs. Normally I sleep with my door closed, but I’ve been hearing them gripe at each other all night. It’s a
ll been about me. I need to know what they’re saying. Or what they’re not saying, as the case may be.
“… court Monday morning?” Mamma says.
Daddy grunts.
They never discuss each other’s schedules. But they’re at a halt now, so they’ve got to come up with other things to fill the silence in this too-large house that’s becoming less of a home by the minute.
The conversation they’re having now … It’s like discussing the weather with a complete stranger. Just admit you both don’t care and go about your day.
The door to their bedroom opens. The squeaking hinge on their door is different from mine, which is different from Trist’s, which is different from Tammy’s.
I hear Daddy exhale long and slow. I imagine him sitting on their bed, the gold comforter dipping beneath his weight as he bends over to unlace a shiny black wingtip. I imagine Mamma dragging her feet into her bathroom, avoiding the mirror as she often does when she wants to deny her age for a while.
They’re at a cease-fire in the middle of a war neither of them ever wanted to fight. This is the moment I realize they’re trying to move on like nothing’s changed and I’m the obstacle that won’t let them.
We’re not a religious family. But sometimes, on Sundays like this one, Daddy goes into work, his own place of worship, and spends the day buried in his religious text—which changes depending on whatever case he’s fighting at the time.
And occasionally, on those Sundays, I go with him.
I sit in the window seat and watch football tape on my iPad or pretend to do homework while I instead watch Daddy make calls or comb through a book with tiny lettering, not unlike the Bible.
Today feels like a Sunday when I really need to go with him.
I just … need.
Need to be there with him. I can’t help thinking maybe there’s a chance he’ll talk to me about this. About why he kept it in all this time. Why he never told me, or if he’s ever had a conversation with Mamma about coming clean to me.
I need to go with him today, more than ever.
My alarm goes off at 7:30 a.m. sharp and I make my way downstairs, but not before I check my email for a response from Merrick.
Home and Away Page 4
