Then came the taunt from Jimmy Preston a couple seats down.
“Boy, Adam. I can’t believe you married a lesbo!”
He said it like he was only kidding. Evelyn frowned and stared at her food.
I smiled like he really was kidding. “Well, we’re getting a divorce.”
As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I regretted them. Evelyn looked up at me for a moment, long enough to know I’d really hurt her, and then left so I wouldn’t see her cry. Jack got up and followed her. Most of the other kids around us laughed, and Jimmy stood up to pat me on the back.
“Way to go, Adam!”
I had lost my friends, but I guess I was finally accepted in the group.
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15
“How could you do that to Evelyn?” Jack asked me the next day.
“I know,” I said, so mortified I could hardly speak.
“It’s wrong,” he said.
“Who are you, the police?” I shouted back. “You treated me like a weirdo for two years!”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “But Evelyn was always nice to you.”
I told Jack I was sorry, and he said I needed to tell that to Evelyn. I went up to her once, but she wouldn’t look up at me. Instead of apologizing, I walked silently away, feeling more ashamed than ever. Winter break was coming on Friday, and I was certain I’d spend the entire time miserable. But on Thursday came the fight.
A couple girls and boys, led by Jimmy, were teasing Evelyn who had been standing alone on the playground. She was giving them some words right back. Jimmy Preston didn’t like what she said, and he pushed her to the ground. I went running towards them and launched myself at Jimmy. It was the greatest tackle of my life. We must have landed about ten feet from where he’d been standing. What happened after that was a flurry. The other guy began kicking me, and the girls attacked Evelyn.
After what seemed like an extraordinarily long time, but probably was only twenty seconds, the school aides were tearing them away. I had a swollen eye and cuts and bruises. Evelyn made out much better than me. And, green belt or not, she did a lot more damage to her opponents than I had.
We were both sent home early that day. As we waited for our parents to pick us up, I apologized to Evelyn for what I’d said about the divorce.
“It’s okay,” she said, with perfect sincerity. And I knew everything was all right.
“And I’m sorry for what they did to you today.”
She shrugged. “Some people are just mean. You’ve seen that more than me.”
I didn’t answer. I had a vision of Gabrielle Burns thrusting her knife into my mom as I stood in the seawater, frozen in confusion. Or fear.
“So what’s it really like? You know. Being a clone.”
I had to think about that one before slowly spilling it out. “I don’t know. Sometimes it’s bad…sometimes it’s kind of nice. My mom wants me to be whatever I want, but my great-grandpa wants me to be my c-father. That’s the bad part. I mean, that and people being mean.”
She frowned, then reached out to grab my hand, pumping it up and down a couple times. “So then what’s nice about it?”
My eyes lingered on her hand holding mine. I almost forgot what the question was. But eventually I formulated some thoughts. “Well, it’s almost like I’m not all alone, and like I’m somehow connected to what happened long ago and what happens later, and like you might have more than one chance to do what you want with your life.” I pried my gaze from our hands to her eyes. “You know, like even if we’re not the same people really, when we talk about stuff when my c-dad was alive, I really feel like I was there. And when we talk about doing things to help the world a long time from now, I feel like that’s still about me because of my clones.”
Evelyn’s eyes were wide with wonder. “That’s really cool!”
I nodded. That part was really cool. My mom and I had talked about that kind of thing a lot.
“Do you know much about your clone-dad?”
“Yeah, they’ve told me a lot about him, and I’ve seen some videos that he made for me, and each birthday I get a letter that he wrote for me and get to sit in his hologram’s lap. He left me a book about his life, but I don’t get to read it till I’m eighteen.”
“Are you writing anything for your clones?”
“Yeah, I do a little. My mom tells me to.”
Evelyn stared into space for a while. “I wish I were a clone.”
I wasn’t exactly sure if she meant it or if she was just trying to make me feel good about myself.
“What’s it like being a…not a clone?” I asked.
“Well,” she said, letting go of my hand as she began to play with the zipper on her backpack, “I guess nobody expects you to be exactly like someone else that lived before, but sometimes they still want you to be a lot like whatever’s ‘normal’ or just like your parents. But my parents are like your mom – they just want me to be whatever I want.”
I nodded. “So I guess it’s kinda the same.”
“I guess,” she said. “But I think it’d be nice to know that someone like me had lived before, and that I could talk to someone like me later with letters and stuff. It’d be like a good pen pal that went on forever, but we were all closer than pen pals because we were all related, you know?”
At that moment the windowed door of the principal’s office clacked open. Mom walked in wearing her jeans and her old UCLA sweatshirt and looking worried. She saw me and gasped as she knelt beside me. “What happened, Michael?” she asked, examining my eye with trembling fingertips. “You got in a fight?”
“He was protecting me,” Evelyn responded.
“Well then good boy!” she exclaimed, making the principal frown. “Are you okay?” she asked Evelyn.
“Yes, Ms. Elwell,” she answered. “Thanks to your son.”
Mom scratched my head proudly as Evelyn’s father walked in. She ran to hug him as he bent down to receive it. He was a tall, strong man with kind brown eyes.
“Are you okay, sweetheart?” he asked as he gently inspected her scrapes.
“I’m fine!” she answered. “Come meet Adam and his mom.”
“It’s an honor, sir,” Sarah said, shaking his hand. I noticed she was still trembling.
“I’m the one who’s honored – the man who protected my daughter and the mother who raised him,” he said, shaking my hand after my mom’s.
“Mr. Green’s a war hero,” Mom told me with admiration.
He laughed. “Or a war criminal, depending on who you ask.”
“You’re a hero,” Sarah repeated. Evelyn held her father’s hand and leaned up against him, smiling. Mom would later tell me how Mr. Green had worked in the State Department where he helped broker an end to the Mideast War with equally brave Muslim negotiators, working despite objections from extremists on both sides who were eager to continue the escalation, helping use the goodwill generated by Shannon Smith-1 to end the war.
I smiled in awe at the towering, square-jawed, yet modest man. Having Mr. Green say that I was the man who protected his daughter filled me with a rare feeling of confidence.
We all stepped out of the office with Evelyn still leaning against him as they walked hand in hand. I imagined myself and my clone-father walking like that, leaving me with a comforting warmth and an aching void.
While Mr. Green told me about his job and asked me about my story writing, Mom ducked back into the principal’s office for a couple minutes. She handed him a photo, explaining that she’d just been informed of Gabrielle’s release.
Mom returned, hugging me from behind while messing up my hair, as if no longer a care in the world. Though she kept glancing around – something I scarcely thought about at the time. She chatted with Evelyn for a while longer. They had met briefly a couple times, but it was the first time they had really talked. I didn’t know it would be their last. If I’d known, I would have soaked it in more. The warm, easy embrace of my mom
. Her fondness for good people. Her delighting in me being social with Evelyn and her dad. I would have concentrated on remembering every word, every expression, every touch.
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16
Friday, December 20, 2041 was the last day before winter break and the end of a busy week. We had practices for the Christmas show every night. But I wasn’t so fixated on the play that I didn’t notice my mom’s nervousness. She didn’t tell me what had made her tense, but she kept reminding me to always make sure a grownup was around and what I should do if a stranger approached.
“Are you okay?” I asked her Friday morning as she dropped me off at school. She had just glanced all around the car before unlocking my door.
Her reply was a nod and a hug. “Have fun today and be careful.” She kissed me on the head.
“See you tonight!” I called as I pulled away and closed the door behind me.
School got out early, after which Reverend Lewis drove Jack, Evelyn and me to the church. Jack and I needed to do a last-minute rehearsal, and Evelyn wanted to watch as her family had plans on Sunday. Jack had me wear large sunglasses that teleprompted the script for me in case I forgot my lines. I sang What Child is This? in my best Ray Charles impersonation, which was really, really bad (and still is). My feet creaked as I was led down the hardwood floor through the middle of the pews on my way to the manger. I tried not to think about those pews being full of about two hundred people.
Jack had the grand finale as King Elvis Presley, singing Blue Christmas as the Three Kings leave Bethlehem. And with that, we finished our last rehearsal a little before sundown as scheduled. Jack reminded the dozen or so kids involved to be at church early on Sunday, then Reverend Lewis led us all out of the church to wait for our parents.
“So it looks like you guys are ready for the play,” Evelyn said, sitting down on the concrete steps leading to the church entrance.
Jack smirked at me. “I dunno. Is Adam ever ready to be on stage?”
I couldn’t argue. “Just don’t make me skip.”
Evelyn laughed and shook her head at me, but in a loving rather than a mean way. “And so what are you guys doing for vacation? Sounds like you’re going to have a Blue Christmas?” Evelyn asked Jack.
“Only if Adam tries to skip during the pageant.”
“What are you going to do during the break?” I asked Evelyn.
“I’m going to have Hanukkah here with my parents.”
“What do you guys do?” I asked.
“Well, the celebration lasts eight days, and this year it started a couple days ago and actually ends on December 25. So while you’re opening your Christmas presents, we’re going to be lighting our menorah and exchanging a gift that we’ve made.”
“What did you make for your parents?”
“I’m making them a calendar with pictures of our family and ancestors above each of the months.”
“That’s neat,” I said, pictures of my own ancestors flashing through my head. Michael and Sarah. And myself.
She smiled at me despite her eyes having to squint in the setting sun. “And what about you?”
“Um, on Christmas Eve day we always drive up to our cabin in the redwoods and have Great-Grandpa Lyle and Lily-2 over, and we string popcorn and cranberries to decorate the tree and then we take turns reading parts of ’Twas the Night Before Christmas.”
“You read the parts for Santa Claus, I assume?” she said, teasing me about being nine days older than her.
“And then,” I continued, choosing to semi-ignore the comment, “we watch It’s a Wonderful Life and a musical version of Scrooge and open our presents Christmas morning.”
“What did you get your mom?” Evelyn asked.
“I made her a holodisk of me singing I’m My Own Grandpaw.”
“That’s perfect!” Evelyn said.
I hoped Mom liked it, and was pleased that Evelyn thought well of it. So pleased that I felt an idiotic grin cemented on my face. But she returned it.
Evelyn’s dad pulled up. “Well, I’ll miss you guys,” she said as she stood up and gave Jack a hug.
As Jack started singing about how he was going to have a Blue Christmas without us, Evelyn went into a big Elvis-fan scream and swoon. I doubled over in laughter.
“Merry Christmas!” she said, recovering from her swoon to give me a tight hug.
“Happy Hanukkah!” I responded, almost breathless from the hug, hyper-sensitively noticing everything about her: Her hair against the side of my face. Her pleasant smell, like jasmine. Her willingness, or even eagerness, to be so close to the human clone. It didn’t take long to conclude that a hug could be at least as good as holding hands.
She kissed me on the cheek and went running to the car.
“See ya next year!” she called from the open car door.
I stood there stunned and glowing and thinking I could never be happier than I was right then. Her father gave me a friendly salute and she waved at me from the car as they pulled away. I barely recovered from my delirium in time to wave back.
Jack pushed my shoulder. “She likes you!”
I felt myself blush, but I was grinning.
An ostentatious luxury car slid up to the curb. Recognition began to dawn as the tinted passenger window hissed down. “Hello, Adam!”
“Who’s that?” Jack asked.
I didn’t move or answer. I was seeing Lyle out of context, like when we ran into Mrs. Slater at the grocery store. He must have been driving by and happened to see me. I waved, expecting him to wave back and then keep going on his way.
“Come on, Adam,” he called, gesturing for me to come to the car.
“Is that your great-grandfather?” Reverend Lewis asked, placing his hand on my shoulder.
“Uh-huh.”
“Is he picking you up?”
I didn’t speak.
“Is everything okay, Adam?” Reverend Lewis asked.
“I guess so,” I said, and started walking toward the car.
“See you Sunday!” Jack called behind me.
I turned and nodded. “Right, see you guys Sunday.” Then I walked up to the car and opened the door. Lyle was forcing a wide smile that I’d never seen before. I saw Lily-2 in a safety seat behind him.
“Mom’s not coming?” I asked.
“No, she asked if I could swing by and pick you up. I guess she had a couple holiday errands to run.” He chuckled. “Don’t worry, we’re not mad at each other anymore. It’s all water under a bridge.”
I slid into the passenger seat and closed the door as he rolled the passenger window back up.
“Are you looking forward to Christmas?”
I nodded vaguely, my pulse speeding up.
“Cwismiss!” cried out a thrilled Lily-2 from behind.
Lyle put the car in gear, which locked the doors. The entrance to the church began drifting away. I saw Jack shouting something, but Lyle’s car was well insulated from the outside world.
“What errands?” I asked. I hated that word. It had always meant my playtime was over, and I had to go on some boring trips to the store when I could be doing fun things instead. But now I wanted to be shopping with Mom more than anything.
“Oh, probably to get some stuff to make Christmas cookies and such, or maybe new decorations. I don’t know.”
Why was he lying? I realized then that never in my life had my mother left me completely alone with Lyle. There must be an emergency he was hiding from me. We drove the last couple minutes in silence.
When we pulled into the driveway, the front door of the house was ajar. My first thought was that flies would be getting in. Maybe Mom left the door open as she was bringing groceries in and forgot to close it. There were darker fears lurking behind those thoughts, but I kept them pushed down. Surely it was the groceries.
“Better stay here for a minute, Adam,” Lyle said. He stared at the open door and turned off the engine. “Let me just make sure everything’s okay in
there.”
My eyes were already wet with unrealized terror. Everything wasn’t okay in there.
A few seconds after Lyle disappeared through the doorway, I opened the car door and crept toward the house, over the fresh-mown grass, and up the two tile stairs to the doormat covered with little sheep that Mom had crocheted a couple years before. I paused before putting my foot through the open doorway, and then paused again when I realized I was standing in the entryway, wondering which way to go and whether I was willing to find what I might find – that dark reality I sensed, but kept pushing away.
I found silence in a house that felt unfamiliar. I was seeing the furniture for the first time. Family photos on the wall now reminded me of the portraits of early presidents, staring at me with stoic eyes. The calendar filled with my mom’s handwriting had the impersonal feel of a museum artifact. I prayed she was okay.
But the response I heard was not from God. There were voices coming from the kitchen. The first voice was my mom’s.
“Grandpa, please,” she begged. Such a weak and frightened voice from the strong, all-knowing mom who had always protected me. She wasn’t that powerful after all. Lyle was the stronger. The reality I tried not to see was mocking me, grinning, forcing me to yield to it. Fear and flustered resentment overwhelmed me. I started to sob without making a sound. I wanted to turn away. Run away.
“You have to die, Sarah,” came Lyle’s voice. “You and your spawn.”
“No, please.”
“What did you expect?” he asked. “You betrayed your God.”
“No, Grandpa,” Mom said, her voice still shaking but a little louder. “I only betrayed you.”
“I’m not your grandpa.”
“What?”
Then came the voice of a woman that sounded distantly familiar, conjuring up disturbing memories of trials, nightmares, and witches with long nails.
“Feel it, whore. Feel the weight of the finger of God!”
I ran at the sound of the voice, running as fast as I could, everything around me blurred. A gunshot jolted me to a breathless stop. I blinked, sure that I’d been running toward the kitchen. But in front of me was the welcome mat and Mom’s crocheted sheep.