by Dante Medema
Kodiak Jones
Me: Can I ask you something hard?
Kodiak: Yeah.
Me: Last year.
When everything happened with Liv.
Did you ever feel like it was too much?
Like you were going crazy?
Kodiak: We’re all a little bit crazy.
The eclectic, artist types.
But yeah. It wasn’t exactly the best time in my life.
Does this have anything to do with why you were crying the other day?
What’s going on?
Me: I think my parents are lying to me about something.
Something huge.
And it’s too much.
I can’t believe that they’d lie to me about this.
Kodiak: Cordelia.
I hate to break it to you.
But people lie all the time.
Even parents.
Trust me. I almost was one.
Everyone knows
what happened last year.
Because Liv cried mascara streaks
at school and screamed
his name
like his soul was
being expelled
from her body.
KODIAK!
And he turned,
his face red
eyes glossy
fingers tight
into fists
while Liv spoke.
“I’m sorry.
I just couldn’t.”
In the crowded hallway,
everyone waited
for his reaction,
and Kodiak howled
as if his soul
was being expelled
from his body
too.
“I know,”
he sobbed,
choking on his words.
And when she reached for him
he fell apart in her arms
and he seemed little
and littler still next to her.
And everyone knows what happened after that.
Kodiak got drunk in 3rd period
and took his mom’s new car
for a joyride.
He crashed,
destroying a sign,
a mailbox,
and the car
before coming back
for 5th period.
Kodiak got handcuffed
outside the school
while everyone watched.
Even Liv
who cried
and whispered,
“We’ll never be the same.”
People
lie all the time.
They lie about things
that bring them fear
and threaten to take
away what is
comfortable.
But blood doesn’t need to lie.
DNA doesn’t care if it
hurts or makes you question
your identity.
DNA makes you who
you are.
People make you question who
you are.
Sana-Friend ♥
Me: Hey.
Hypothetical question.
Sana: I love hypothetical questions!
Yes!
Wait. No!
Does this involve Emma and her being totally gay for me?
Me: No.
Sana: Is it a writer thing or a Cordelia thing?
Me: A writer thing, for sure.
What if you knew someone was lying about a potentially HUGE secret?
Like, life-changing huge.
And the only way to find an answer was to reach out to a stranger?
Would you do it?
Sana: Is this about your GeneQuest results?
Me: No! I told you. It’s a completely hypothetical writer thing.
Sana: Then hypothetically
I think you should totally email your father of 99.9% accuracy and ask him what’s up.
First draft of message to Jack Bisset:
Dear Jack,
I think I might be your daughter. Or at least that’s what GeneQuest says (and is apparently very accurate). This might be a little awkward, but I have a lot of questions. My parents are wonderful, but I worry they are keeping a big secret from me (i.e., you).
So what’s the deal? Am I adopted? Or are you a sperm donor?
Second draft of message to Jack Bisset:
Dear Mr. Bisset,
I know this might come as a shock to you, but I think you are my father.
Trust me, it was a surprise to me too, finding your name listed as my biological father on GeneQuest, especially considering my parents, the ones who raised me the last eighteen years, have never let on that I might be adopted.
Which feels weird to say in an email.
I guess I’m going to delete this and try again sometime.
How is this so hard?
Sometimes
you don’t know the question
until you’re in the middle of
asking.
Sometimes
you cover the scab
you want to pick at
because you know
it might never stop
bleeding.
Sometimes
like a sled dog
carrying a team’s worth
of weight
on his own,
it is too much to hold.
Sometimes
you need to unload the sled,
pick the scab,
and ask the question.
Sana and I share earbuds,
listening to her favorite songs
instead of the way our boots
crunch snow that will melt
by tomorrow.
“If we walk,
if we listen,
we might feel
better.”
She always says “we”
as if our feelings are the same.
Connected like sister snowflakes
stuck to my gloves.
Most of the time I believe her,
but today her words feel all wrong.
I tell her, “Maybe I don’t want to do this
anymore. This project, it’s too much.
If Bea can switch her major,
I can switch my project.”
“You can’t go back.”
She isn’t wrong.
I think of my chest opening again,
bright red blood splattered across
stark white blankets of snow.
Soon it will be gone.
It’s called breakup,
when the snow disappears
and the dog crap thaws
and mud and gravel
are revealed.
This is breakup for me too.
From the memory of things being the way
they were before I knew.
Clear
and close
and now gone.
GeneQuest
Genetic Family Conversations
To: Jack Bisset (last online 4 months ago)
From: Cordelia Koenig (online)
Dear Jack,
Hi. I’m reaching out because GeneQuest lists you as my father. So, I guess it’s nice to meet you (sort of).
Sincerely,
Cordelia
I can’t stop
looking at his face.
Waiting, as if at any moment
his Facebook profile will change
and reveal
a part of him
I couldn’t see before.
I refresh my email
over.
And over.
And over.
Every time my phone
rings
or dings
or beeps
or buzzes.
I imagine he’s
there
on the other end
with a reply.
I can’t stop wishing the future looked
more like my p
ast.
Hidden.
Away from sight.
Vague.
If only I could take my heart
from my chest and pot it
like a plant.
Feed it full of all the things it needs
and put it back in its home
once the hard part is over.
If I were a plant,
I wouldn’t be Jack’s.
He may have provided the seed,
but he didn’t dig the earth
or water soil or wait through
a cold spring for my petals to
form and grow.
But I’m wilting now,
and I can’t help but wonder if Jack is the
rain or the sun.
The pesticide or the fertilizer.
GeneQuest says we share
fifty percent
of what makes us
us.
Fifty percent of me
is a stranger.
And the other fifty percent
is a liar.
GeneQuest
Genetic Family Conversations
To: Cordelia Koenig (online)
From: Jack Bisset (last online one hour ago)
Wow.
I never thought I’d hear from you.
I guess you’re probably wondering what happened with me and your mom? How is she, by the way? Did she ever make it as a big-time real estate agent?
Confirmation.
My.
Mom.
Had.
An.
Affair.
Which.
Means.
One.
Thing.
My dad, with his jokes
and his Shakespeare
and his classes,
is not my father.
But my mom knows Jack.
My biological father.
Enough.
The realization and the pain
it will cause my dad
and my sisters
hurts
more
than
before.
Kodiak Jones
Kodiak: Hey.
I’m running late.
Me: For what?
Kodiak: Weren’t we supposed to meet up and workshop our pieces?
Me: Crap.
I forgot.
Kodiak: That’s cool. Do you want to reschedule?
Me: No.
Come over.
I could use the distraction.
Kodiak: Oh?
Me: That lie I thought my parents were telling?
Turns out I was right.
To: Cordelia Koenig ([email protected])
From: Vidya Nadeer ([email protected])
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Senior Project Application
Cordelia,
I’ve loved the recent poems you are turning in for class! I only wish you’d share them with your peers. You’ve grown so much in your writing this last year, and I must say I’m proud. Have you thought any more about the poetry conference? There’s a contest on the last day. You’d have to recite your poem, but I really think you have a chance at winning if you put forth some effort.
Think about it.
Vidya Nadeer
To: Vidya Nadeer ([email protected])
From: Cordelia Koenig ([email protected])
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Senior Project Application
Dear Ms. Nadeer,
Thank you so much for thinking of me in regard to the conference. I’ll be sure to consider it.
Thanks again,
Cordelia Koenig
Kodiak isn’t playing a part.
He’s really the kind of guy who
looks like he was born with stubble
and a hoodie attached to his body.
As if his face is simultaneously pictured in the dictionary
under “cool” and “carefree.”
When he parks his bike against my house
I’m already closing the front door,
pulling my beanie over my ears.
He reaches,
pulling me into a hug that
feels so familiar
I could swear I still have braces
and he’s still wearing Vans.
Maybe
in another world
where Jack raised me instead of Dad,
I would have fit
with the boy
who sings his poems.
Instead,
I tug Kodiak back to my world.
Where there’s a lake behind my house
and it’s so cold we might freeze,
but the ice isn’t thick enough to walk on.
We sit at the water’s edge,
next to each other
on the dock where I learned to fish
and where my sisters and I
took turns
pushing each other in
every summer.
We’re shivering but anything
is better than sitting under the roof
where the lies began.
When Kodiak stuffs his hands
into his pockets
and stares out onto the lake
I forget he’s an eagle or an otter.
He’s just a boy who used to
know me.
A boy who might want to know me
again.
I say, “It’s so much easier to write a poem
and keep it in my notebook
than it is to say how I feel.”
“But if you say it out loud,
it takes the scariness of those feelings
away.”
Then he’s quiet,
and the world is
crackling ice
and the still of what
used to be winter
and is now something else.
When I’m done reading my poems
he looks faraway,
and doesn’t say
a word.
Doesn’t try to fill up
the silence that sits between
us like another person.
But he’s right.
I am free.
So I tell him about the message from
Jack.
The big secret.
I know in my heart
what Jack meant when he asked
about Mama.
They have a history:
Me.
Kodiak’s breath puffs out in tiny clouds,
and he takes his hands out of his pockets
and reaches for mine.
Pulling me to a stand,
he tucks my hair back
into my beanie and holds me there a moment.
“It’s okay to be sad, Cordelia.
This is sad.”
Sana-Friend ♥
Sana: In case you were wondering . . .
My neighbor was not joking about paying me in cigarettes.
Me: That’s disgusting.
When are you going to tell her you don’t smoke?
Sana: Absolutely NEVER!
God Cordelia. Think about my street cred.
Me: What was I thinking?
Sana: I ask myself that constantly.
WHAT is Cordelia thinking?
Me: Hey I’m headed to bed.
I’ll see you at school tomorrow.
Sana: Dude you’re being weird. It’s like 8.
Me: I know.
Sana: You know you’re being weird or you know it’s 8?
Me: Both.
Sana: Are you okay?
Me: I don’t know.
Sana: Do you want me to come over?
Hey.
Cordelia?
CORDELIA ANN KOENIG!
Sister Bea
Bea: I sent you my GeneQuest results.
Me: I don’t need them.
Bea: Mom said you’ve been having a hard time.
And I went back and checked. I never sent them!
She’s
worried.
But having a hard enough time you can’t do your own project?
Come on Delia. That’s not like you.
Me: Yeah.
Bea: You should talk to Mom.
Me: I can’t.
Bea: Why?
Me: I can’t.
Bea: Want to know what I think?
I think you’re just going through some sort of senior year crisis of self.
I went through the same thing, which is why I did the ancestry project.
Because I wanted to learn who I was.
Where I came from.
And know what I found out?
Our family is really cool.
We’re related to Emmeline Pankhurst!
Me: Trust me. It’s not a crisis of self.
Bea: But knowing I was related to her.
She’s like the best feminist.
It’s half the reason I chose Brown for Women’s Studies.
I promise. It’ll get better next year when you’re at college.
Me: This is different.
Bea: Yeah, I know.
It’s always different with you.
Like in third grade when you asked to go by Hannah instead of Cordelia.
Or a few years ago when you decided you were vegan.
How long did that last again? Five minutes? Ten?
Know what I think?
Me: What?
Bea: I think you were hoping your results would be different.
That you were switched at birth or something.
And now you’re disappointed.
Me: I promise you, it’s not like that.
Bea: You aren’t that special.
We are all individuals trying to get our needs met.
And you’re alienating the people who love you.
Iris said you’ve been acting really weird too.
And Mom said you’ve been hanging out with Kodiak again.
She’s worried.
Me: I bet she is.
I’d be worried if I was Mom too.
Bea: What is that supposed to mean?
Me: Nothing.
Forget it.
To: Cordelia Koenig ([email protected])
From: Bea Koenig ([email protected])
Subject: Your Project
Here.
42% German/French
31.5% British/Irish
22% Scandinavian
2.6% Broadly Southern European
1.25% Broadly European
0.3% North African and Arabian
0.2% Native American
Truth is,
we aren’t so different
anyway.
Just numbers
and words
on a page.
