Where We Belong

  So if it wasn’t her miraculous conception, her looks, her brains, or her athletic ability, I wondered why I was jealous, sometimes even wishing to be her. I wasn’t sure, but had the feeling it had something to do with the way Charlotte felt on the inside. She genuinely seemed to like who she was—or at least had the luxury of giving it no thought whatsoever, all of which translated to massive popularity. Everyone knew her and loved her regardless of clique—the jocks, geeks, burnouts, and hoosiers—while I felt downright invisible most of the time.

  On one particularly bad day during my junior year, the gulf between Charlotte and me was illustrated in dramatic fashion. First, I failed an American history pop quiz on the one day that week I had blown off my homework. Then, I got my period all over my khaki pants, which was called to my attention as I did a problem wrong on the whiteboard in trig. Third, I heard that Tricia Henry had started a rumor that I was a lesbian (which wouldn’t matter if it was true, although she was too much of an ignoramus to realize that distinction) simply based on the fact that I play the drums.

  Meanwhile, Charlotte made the homecoming court. As a sophomore—virtually unheard of at DuBourg. To her credit, she looked genuinely surprised, and completely humble as she elegantly made her way down from the bleachers to the center of the gym where Seth O’Malley, the most beautiful boy in the entire school, gave her a high five and threw his muscled arm around her neck. I didn’t want to be on the homecoming court, nor did I want our entire class body watching me, in bloodstained pants or otherwise, but I ached with envy over how effortless it all was for her. How she could stand there with no trace of self-consciousness, even waving at a group of obnoxious freshmen boys bellowing, “Hottie Lottie!” It didn’t help matters that Belinda shot me sympathetic stares during the pep rally and asked me no fewer than four times if I was jealous of my little sister, a more direct version of Mr. Tully’s question. Clearly, I was supposed to feel that way, even in the eyes of my guidance counselor and best friend.

  Later that day, I passed Charlotte in the hall in a pack of happy, pretty girls. She was still wearing her red sash from the assembly over her long-sleeved, button-down white blouse and red plaid kilt. (I could never understand how she could make a uniform look good when I looked like crap every day. Then again maybe it was because I typically went with the more comfortable but decidedly unstylish polo shirt and khaki pants option.) We made eye contact, and she eagerly smiled at me, pausing as if on the verge of breaking free of her posse. But I didn’t give her the chance. I put my head down and kept walking. I glanced back just long enough to tell I had hurt her feelings, maybe even tarnished her big day. Instead of feeling guilty, I felt a dark, shameful satisfaction that I had managed to wipe that near-constant grin off her face.

  It was short-lived, though, as she was back to her same old cheery self that evening, chatting with our mother in the kitchen like the best friends they were. The two had heart-to-hearts all the time, if you can call surface revelations such as “if only green beans tasted as good as chocolate cake” and “isn’t Suri Cruise precious?!” heart-to-hearts, while she and my father bonded over her swimming. There were few things as sacred as sports to my dad, and I watched him brimming with pride whenever they returned from her meets, memorizing every boring race, then rehashing the details, over and over and over. So I guess it was inevitable that our parents would come to like her better, all but saying the words they were thinking: “Why can’t you be more like your sister?”

  Deep down, I knew they loved us both equally, and that any favoritism had to do with the fact that she brought them daily pleasure and was just plain easier to live with—not that she was their biological kid. Yet over time, that fact certainly didn’t help matters in my head. Nor did the fact that they all looked alike. Even my parents could pass for siblings, with their athletic builds, curly brown hair, and perky Irish noses complete with a smattering of outdoorsy freckles. Their personalities were similar, too, all of them hardwired to be cheerful and outgoing, even with strangers. The three of them all talked nonstop about anything and everything and nothing. They could talk to a freakin’ wall while I couldn’t conceive of making small talk just for the heck of it, especially with a stranger (much to the annoyance of my boss at Schnuck’s who seemed to think that chatting up the customer while I bagged their groceries was crucial to their shopping experience). It was just another example of me feeling like an outsider.

  * * *

  Things went downhill my senior year, the chilly standoff with my parents escalating to an outright war—and believe me, my parents didn’t subscribe to the “choose your battles” strategy. Everything was a battle with them. We fought over the volume of my music (my iPod was going to make me go deaf; my drums disturbed the neighbors). We fought over my decision to be a vegetarian (unwise for a growing girl). We fought over my Facebook page (somehow they found the status update “my parents suck” offensive). We fought about my messy room (that they weren’t supposed to go into in the first place). We fought about the cigarettes and bottle of vodka they “found” in my messy room (earning them another status update comparing them to the Gestapo). We fought over the Catholic church, my attendance at mass, the fact that I was agnostic (okay, maybe this was just to piss them off—I did sorta believe in Him). We fought over Belinda after she got busted at school with a dime bag (thank God they didn’t find my dime bag during their unconstitutional search and seizure). We fought over my ten o’clock curfew that I broke more in protest of how stupidly early it was than because I had anything that interesting to do (translation: nothing interesting to do and certainly nothing that involved boys—only the lame ones liked me). We fought over my shitty grades (and shittier attitude). We even managed to fight over my shockingly high SAT score—because, in their words, it was further evidence that I wasn’t living up to my potential. And most of all, we fought over the fact that I wasn’t going to college—not even to the School of Music at the University of Missouri, Mr. Tully’s grand plan for me (which I might have considered if I didn’t have to study any other subject or see anyone else from my high school while I was there). We fought over everything.

  Then one freezing January night (we fought over the thermostat, too—there was frost on the inside of my windows, for Christ’s sake), I woke up to go the bathroom and overheard my parents talking in the kitchen. As I crept down the hall, I felt oddly soothed by the cadence of their voices and the sound of my mother’s teaspoon clinking against her cup, just as I secretly loved the sound of Charlotte snoring on the nights she had a bad dream and asked to sleep in my room. For one second, I felt like my little-girl self again—and wondered why I couldn’t just will myself to be happy.

  That’s when I overheard the word “adoption.” Then: “her mother.”

  I froze, my cheeks burning despite the fact that I was shivering, then crept closer to the banister, craning to listen, hoping I had heard them wrong.

  But no. My mother continued, “Who knows what she was like. Who knows what really happened.”

  “I know,” my father said. “The agency could have lied.”

  My heart pounded as I kept listening. Depression … mental illness … alcohol and drugs … teen pregnancy.

  Their words slashed through me, filling me with rage. I knew I was a difficult, moody disappointment, but in a lot of ways, it all seemed like typical teenager stuff—hardly a big enough crime for them to start casting stones at the woman who birthed me and had given them the “treasure” they always claimed I was. Yet the worst part was that suddenly, it all rang true to me. Their theories about my birth mother would certainly explain a few things, that’s for sure. Maybe she was the root of my problem—she and my birth dad. And so now, along with the rage, I realized I was feeling shame, too. A lovely combination.

  “Do you think we can talk her into going to college?” I heard my mother say.

  “If she even gets in.”

  My mother said even if I did, it made no sense to pay all th
at money if I wasn’t going to try. It was bad enough that they had to pull teeth to get me to fill out the application for Missouri. They weren’t going to keep spoon-feeding me. I’d have to find out on my own what the world was like.

  That’s when they took it to a whole new level, saying you couldn’t really make someone change. My dad said he would have killed to go to college. My mom said if only I tried half as hard as Charlotte. Then they circled right back to where they started, blaming my biology, coming right out and saying it’s the only thing that explains the difference between the girls. In other words, nature over nurture. I wasn’t their fault; I was her fault. I felt myself blaming her, too, while a sad irony washed over me. Even though she had given me away, this was the first time in my life that I had truly felt rejected, disowned, downright unloved. And it was my own parents’ fault.

  Devastated, I returned to bed, putting my face under the covers, clenching my fists, telling myself not to cry if only because it would make me look like shit in the morning. I couldn’t afford to be one drop more ugly than I already was.

  I squeezed my eyes shut, thinking of her as I often did at night, a rapid succession of faces flashing in my brain, until I settled where I usually did: on a cross between Meryl Streep and Laura Linney. But this time, she was a sickly, crackhead version of the two actresses, my fantasies of a glamorous, successful mother quickly fading.

  In that moment, I decided I was going to find her. I was going to find out the truth about who she was and why she had given me away. I would turn eighteen in just a few months, and the day I did, the very morning I did, I would call the agency and get her name and address. Until then, I would save up for a ticket to wherever she was. I would show my parents, show everyone. Show them what, I wasn’t exactly sure, but I would figure that out once I got there.

  * * *

  So on April Fools’ Day (the biggest joke of a birthday), I called the agency, then, as directed, sent them a fax with my social security number and signature. Two minutes later, I had an answer in my in-box. My hands shaking, I read: Marian Caldwell, along with a New York City address. It took everything I had not to Google her, but I worried that if I did, I’d somehow find an excuse to chicken out, even if it was as simple as her looking mean in her picture. I didn’t want anything to sway me from my plan. I didn’t want to write her a letter and wait for months for it to be answered—or worse, not answered. I didn’t want anything to be on her terms when everything had been on her terms in the beginning. It was my turn. And this was my way.

  So right after my birthday, and before a long, four-day weekend, I put the genius plan that Belinda helped me orchestrate into action (genius because it was so easy). I simply asked my parents if I could join Belinda and her mother on a road trip to Mobile to visit Belinda’s aunt (after planting a few offhand fibs about said aunt being a former Catholic missionary). I got permission after they called Belinda’s mom to confirm the trip. Then I told Belinda’s mom that I wasn’t feeling well, banking on the only element of luck—that Mrs. Greene wouldn’t phone my parents to discuss the cancellation. Sure enough, she did not, and the next day I went down to the bus station on Fifteenth Street and bought a two-hundred-seventy-five-dollar round-trip ticket to New York City, and boarded a foul-smelling Greyhound bus with what seemed to be a good many ex-cons, including a shady driver.

  For the next twenty-four hours, I rode that bus halfway across the country, listening to my iPod and wondering about her and her story. Had she been too poor, too young, or too sick to keep me? Or did she just not want me? Had she ever regretted her decision? Had she pulled herself up by her bootstraps since then, changing her life completely? Did she want me to find her? Had she ever looked for me? Was she married now? Did she have children who she kept who would be my half siblings? Who was my father (there was nothing on him in the file)? Did I get all my loser genes from her, him, or both of them? Were they still together, raising my full-blooded siblings? Would meeting her help me understand why I am the way I am? Or just make me feel worse? With every scenario, I made a list of pros and cons. If she was an awful loser, my parents would be right—and maybe I’d be destined to be that way, too. On the other hand, if my parents were wrong about her, then I disproved their theory, but would have to confront another problem: Why didn’t she want me? And would my life have been so much better if she had? Would I still feel the way I do now inside—dark and frustrated and lonely? There seemed to be no winning—and a huge chance for losing. But then again, what else was new?

  * * *

  And then I finally arrive at the Port Authority terminal, a scary shit hole, smelling worse than the bus, which I didn’t think was possible. I look around with no clue where to go. The three people I ask either don’t speak English or have no desire to reply to me. I finally see a sign for taxis and follow the arrows to the street, emerging onto Eighth Avenue, which looks nothing like the New York I’ve seen on television and in the movies. Overwhelmed, I find a uniformed worker barking at everyone. She looks right through me, but I speak up, ask her if this is where I can get a taxi. She points to the back of a very long line. As I wait, I keep my eyes fixed on a homeless woman across the street. She is huddled under a gray quilt, a cardboard sign propped against her, a paper cup at her feet. I wonder if she’s my mother—maybe she’s just been evicted from the address the agency sent.

  Twenty minutes later, I am climbing into a cab, which is surprisingly clean, a hopeful sign. I give the driver the address I’ve memorized as he lurches full speed ahead, stopping and starting every few blocks, the scenery quickly improving. We drive through a wooded area, that I assume is Central Park, and then emerge into a neighborhood that looks residential. A minute later, he stops, looks at me, points at the meter. It reads $9.60. I hand him eleven dollars—and remember advice my dad once gave me: When in doubt, tip. I give him another buck. Then I grab my backpack from the seat next to me, slide out of the car onto Eighty-eighth Street and Madison Avenue and look up at the residence of my birth mother.

  Damn, I think. I did it.

  I glance down at my black Swatch watch, nervously loosening the polyurethane strap one notch, then tightening it again. It is nearly eleven, probably too late to go knocking on her door, but I can’t wait until the morning to find out the truth. I remind myself that this is the city that never sleeps, hoping she is up, then hoping nobody is home.

  I pace in the shadows of the sidewalk, my stomach in knots. It’s hard to say what I want more—for me to like her or for her to like me. After stalling a few more seconds, I finally force myself to walk to the open doorway of her building and peer around the lobby. It is fancy, with a gleaming, black-and-white marble floor and formal furniture. The crack den notion quickly vanishes, but I’m more intimidated than relieved. My heart pounding, a doorman suddenly materializes, asking if he can help me. I jump, then say hello. He says hello back, friendly enough. He has shiny black hair, neatly gelled into a low side part, and wears a navy and gold uniform with a matching hat. His nametag reads JAVIER—but for a second, I think it says “Caviar”—which I picture her eating on a high floor above me.

  “I’m here to see Marian Caldwell,” I say, trying to sound more official than I must look in my jeans, T-shirt, and pilled sweater coat. I nervously pluck a few balls of fuzz from my sleeve, wishing I had Googled her, after all. Belinda was right—I should have been more prepared for this moment. I would have worn something nicer. Maybe I wouldn’t have come at all.

  “She expecting you?” Javier asks, giving me a curious once-over.

  I panic, worried that he has been warned about the possible arrival of a troubled teenager. Then, as I hear Belinda telling me not to be paranoid, frequent advice from her, I reassure myself Javier doesn’t know a thing about me—he’s just doing his job. Just in case, though, I smile, so as to look, at the very least, untroubled. Then I clear my throat and say, “Yes … I mean, she very well might be.”

  Technically this is true. She might be w
aiting for me, expecting me, hoping for me. After all, she did sign the paper that said I could know her name on my eighteenth birthday—which she had to have remembered was a week ago. Surely she keeps track of my birthdays. It seems the very least a woman could do who, you know, gives birth to a child and then gives her away. She might even have a little annual ritual or ceremony she performs. Maybe she sips champagne with her closest friends or her own mother, my grandmother. Maybe she bakes a cake, adding a candle with every passing year. I wonder if she loves chocolate as much as I do. Or maybe she will tell me the sweet tooth came straight from my birth father. The answers might be seconds away.

  As Javier turns and pushes a button on a large switchboard, I strongly consider bolting. But instead, I hold as still as the marble statues flanking the elevator, even holding my breath as I anticipate the sound of her voice, asking who is here to see her. But there is only a loud buzzing noise in response and Javier turns to me and says, “You can go ahead up!” with a grand gesture toward the elevator.

  I take this as a good sign. She is, by nature, welcoming, granting permission to visit when she has no idea who is at her door. Then again, maybe she thinks I’m someone else. Maybe she has a real daughter who ran out to the store for some gum or milk—and frequently forgets her key.

  In any event, there is no turning back now. “Um … what floor?”

  “That’d be the penthouse!” Javier says, pointing skyward with great flair.

  I nod, as if I’m told to go to the penthouse every day of the week, but inside, the word causes panic. I readjust my backpack, swallow, and take the few steps to the polished elevator doors. They suddenly open, exposing an old man in high-waisted pants walking a tidily groomed toy poodle in a pink sweater and purple rhinestone collar. The two don’t go together at all, except for the fact that they both survey me with disapproval as I step past them. Once in the elevator alone, I take a deep breath, and push the PH button. When the doors close, I quickly practice my introduction, with slight variations: