“Was I the fourth in-vitro attempt?”
“You were.” Her mother smiled. She lifted her face to the sky. “We got two girls to love, Pammy. Today we say goodbye to one of them. Yvette was a good cat. A loyal cat. And today, she comes back to the earth, back to you.”
Hollis snorted. She couldn’t help herself. “Don’t you think you’re being a little cheesy?”
“Pam loves cheese. Don’t you, Pammy? Just like Yvette.”
Hollis shot her mother a look, which she didn’t see because she was still addressing the sky.
Hollis stood in silence, waiting.
Finally, her mother looked at her. “Do you want to say a few words?”
“Like what?”
“There’s no right or wrong here, Holl. There are no rules for these things. Just speak what’s in your heart.”
She didn’t plan to say it. She wasn’t even conscious of the thought process, but as Hollis stood there, staring at the mound of dirt, thinking about the three failed in-vitro attempts and Pam’s consolation kitten and how, if Hollis’s mother hadn’t tried a fourth time, Hollis wouldn’t even be standing here, the words just popped out. “Milo emailed the cryobank. They told him our donor’s name. I thought I didn’t want to know anything, and I still don’t, really, but now I know. His name is William Bardo and we have his date of birth, and Milo’s trying to find him, and none of this would be happening if Pam hadn’t gotten sick, and that makes me feel like crap.”
“Oh, honey—” her mother started to say, but Hollis cut her off.
“No. I need to say this. The only reason Pam found Milo and his moms is because she got cancer. She knew she was going to die. If we’d never met them, Milo wouldn’t have known Pam’s email address and he wouldn’t have gotten back in touch with me. None of this would be happening. It’s all because Pam got sick. Milo … Frankie and Suzanne … Abby … Noah … all these people who are suddenly coming into my life are here because of Pam dying. And it’s cool. I really like everyone. But I would send them all away, every one of them, if I could have her back.”
“Of course you would,” her mother said softly.
Hollis wanted to say more, but her mouth wasn’t listening to her brain. And now, damn it, she was crying again.
“You’re feeling guilty,” her mother said, “like you’re somehow capitalizing on Pam’s death by letting them into your life.”
Hollis nodded. She wiped her nose on the back of her hand.
“But don’t you see that you’re looking at it wrong? Holl … this was Pam’s gift. To you. This was how she made sure you would be okay without her.”
“How do you know?”
“I know,” her mother said, “because Pamela Barnes was the most generous person I have ever met. And she loved you.”
They stood there, Hollis and her mother, looking at each other, breathing in the same crisp air and thinking about all that they had lost, their puffs of breath lingering above the mound of dirt, just for a second, before they disappeared.
MILO
He told his moms at dinner, not just about the email he’d sent to the cryolab last week, but also about the response he’d received today.
“Well,” Frankie said, slathering butter on a roll. “This is exciting news.”
She was faking it. Milo had known Frankie his whole life, so he knew when she was putting on an act. Her reaction—to hearing William Bardo’s name, to learning that Milo was moving forward with the search—might seem genuine to an outside observer. Warm hug. Jolly words. But those words didn’t ring true the way they had in sixth grade when Milo discovered he was a finalist in the New York Public Library poetry contest. This is exciting news. Then, she meant it. Now, she wanted him to think she meant it, but she didn’t actually mean it.
Milo had been expecting this. He even started to backpedal. He started to say, “Listen, Ma, if you’re not okay with me—”
But Suzanne cut him off. “No,” she said, grabbing Milo’s hand across the table, almost knocking over a bowl of peas. “This is important to you, so this is important to us. We are a family and we are in this together … right?”
Frankie bobbed her head. “Absolutely.” She took a sip of water and set down her glass. Then she turned to Milo. “I just want to make sure that your expectations are realistic.”
Right. He knew this was too good to be true. Frankie never just conceded. She had to argue and counterargue every point.
“Just because this man signed a waiver to be known at the time he donated doesn’t mean he feels the same way now.”
“I know,” Milo said.
“What if he has a family of his own? What if he hasn’t told them he was a sperm donor? Have you thought about what you actually want out of this, Mi? If it’s just medical information, that’s one thing, but if you’re looking for this man to fulfill some kind of father fantasy … if you’re looking for this man to suddenly want to be a part of your life—”
“He has a name,” Milo cut in. He could feel his body tense. “It’s not this man. It’s William Bardo.”
“Frank,” Suzanne said gently.
“Okay,” Frankie said. “I’m just saying, this … William Bardo … doesn’t know you exist. He doesn’t know any of you exist. There will be mental and emotional consequences for him, just like there are for all of us.”
“I know that,” Milo said.
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“He could shut you out. He could be an asshole.”
“Frankie,” Suzanne said.
“What? He needs to be prepared.” Frankie looked at Milo. “I just want you to be prepared.”
“I am.”
“Because this could happen really quickly. Now that you have a name, and a birth date … with the Internet and social media … once you do this … once you actually contact him … there’s no taking it back.”
“I know,” Milo said. “I want to do this. Can you just trust that I’ve thought it through? I know what I’m doing. I’m fifteen. I’m not some little kid that you need to protect.”
Frankie raised both hands. “I know you’re not a little kid. But you’re still my kid—”
“Our kid,” Suzanne interjected.
“Our kid. And I—we—just don’t want to see you get hurt.”
Milo looked at his mothers. At Frankie, waving her arms around, subconsciously directing the conversation like a traffic cop, and at Suzanne calmly taking her hand. He thought about all the conversations he’d overheard between them, about how Frankie didn’t feel like as much of a mother because she wasn’t the “bio mom,” and how Suzanne always reassured her that she was. And he thought about walking down the sidewalks of Park Slope, and looking at every dad with a kid, and wondering if that dad could be his. And he thought about how he would always wonder, how he would never stop looking at dads on the sidewalk, and then he heard himself speak. “I don’t care if I get hurt. I need to do this. I just … do.”
Frankie opened her mouth like she wanted to say something more but then thought better of it.
Suzanne squeezed Frankie’s hand. “How can we help?”
“Help?” Milo said.
“We could … I don’t know … compile a list of colleges in the Twin Cities or start searching the white pages?”
“No.” He shook his head. “I need to do this on my own.”
Milo was surprised by how strongly he felt this. It wasn’t their quest. It was his. And Hollis’s, and Abby’s, and Noah’s. And—if Noah’s brother Josh ever changed his mind—it would be Josh’s quest, too. Even if everything blew up in their faces, at least they would be in it together.
* * *
From:
[email protected] To:
[email protected];
[email protected]; HollisDarbs @MNPSmail.org
Date: Wednesday, January 13, at 8:33 PM
Subject: Re: Houston, we have a name …
I can’t stop saying it. William Ba
rdo. William Bardo. William Bardo. It sounds Shakespearean, no? The Bard? I wonder if he goes by Will. Or Bill. Billy? We should probably search them all …
From:
[email protected] To:
[email protected];
[email protected]; MiloRobClark @brooklynIDS.org
Date: Wednesday, January 13, at 8:52 PM
Subject: FB
Facebook is a dead end. There’s a William Bardocz, a William Bardos, a William Bardoel, a William Bardosson, a Bill Bardon, a Billy Bardoe, and one Will Bardo, but he’s still in high school. No Instagram, Twitter, or Tumblr matches either.
From:
[email protected] To:
[email protected];
[email protected];
[email protected] Date: Wednesday, January 13, at 9:11 PM
Subject: Googlin’
There’s a Bill Bardo, PhD, with post-doctoral research in “theoretical and experimental investigations of the quantum mechanical behaviour of masers and lasers.” But it looks like he’s retired. And British.
From:
[email protected] To:
[email protected];
[email protected]; HollisDarbs @MNPSmail.org
Date: Wednesday, January 13, at 9:16 PM
Subject: Um
What’s a maser?
From:
[email protected] To:
[email protected];
[email protected]; HollisDarbs @MNPSmail.org
Date: Wednesday, January 13, at 9:19 PM
Subject: Re: Um
Maser (noun): a device using the stimulated emission of radiation by excited atoms to amplify or generate coherent monochromatic electromagnetic radiation in the microwave range.
From:
[email protected] To:
[email protected];
[email protected]; HollisDarbs @MNPSmail.org
Date: Wednesday, January 13, at 9:24 PM
Subject: Thanks Noah
Anyone dealing with masers is clearly A) not an English major, and B) too smart to have fathered us.
From:
[email protected] To:
[email protected];
[email protected];
[email protected] Date: Wednesday, January 13, at 9:36 PM
Subject: Speak for yourself
I am wicked smart.
From:
[email protected] To:
[email protected]; MiloRobClark @brooklynIDS.org;
[email protected] Date: Wednesday, January 13, at 9:43 PM
Subject: Hi Hollis!
Nice of you to join us ☺.
From:
[email protected] To:
[email protected];
[email protected];
[email protected] Date: Wednesday, January 13, at 9:47 PM
Subject: Nice to be here
Sorry I’m late. Weird day.
From:
[email protected] To:
[email protected]; AbsofSteel3 @sheboygancountryday.edu; NoahZark.Rez @techHSmail.com
Date: Wednesday, January 13, at 9:51 PM
Subject: Made even weirder by more Googlin’ …
Hi Hollis. There’s a “John William Bardo” who became the 13th president of Wichita State University in 2012, but he looks old enough to be our grandfather.
From:
[email protected] To:
[email protected]; AbsofSteel3 @sheboygancountryday.edu; HollisDarbs @MNPSmail.org
Date: Wednesday, January 13, at 10:03 PM
Subject: LinkedIn
And a Will Bardo, “National sales manager at Australian Autoparts,” living in Brisbane, Australia. Can’t see his full profile because I’m not “linked in.”
P.S. Hi Hollis ☺.
From:
[email protected] To:
[email protected];
[email protected]; HollisDarbs @MNPSmail.org
Date: Wednesday, January 13, at 10:14 PM
Subject: For your listening enjoyment …
Here’s a song called “Billy Bardo” by some dead country singer named Johnny Paycheck. In case we need a theme song to search by … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heZ3Jn7zcz8.
From:
[email protected] To:
[email protected];
[email protected];
[email protected] Date: Wednesday, January 13, 2016, at 10:27 PM
Subject: Wow
I don’t even know what to say about that song.
From:
[email protected] To:
[email protected]; MiloRobClark @brooklynIDS.org;
[email protected] Date: Wednesday, January 13, 2016, at 10:35 PM
Subject: You’re welcome.
xoxo
10:35 p.m. and they were just getting warmed up.
* * *
In the morning, Life Science wasn’t in the lab. It was moved to the library so the class could have a research period. Milo found JJ waiting for him at a table in the back.
“So?” JJ said.
“So.” Milo pulled up a chair and sat down.
“You look tired.”
“I was up late.”
“What’s new on the donor front?”
“Not much. A lot of dead ends.”
What Milo didn’t say, what he didn’t want to shove down JJ’s throat, was how much fun he was having. How—even though they’d had no luck actually locating William Bardo—Milo and Hollis and Abby and Noah had discovered something else they had in common: a sick sense of humor. At some point late last night, they’d switched over from group emailing to group texting, and things had started going off the rails. First Noah texted this: So I’ve come up w/ a slogan for our cryolab: U spank it, we bank it.
Then Milo responded with: U jack it, we pack it.
And Abby, without missing a beat, texted back: Your jiz is our biz.
Even Hollis, who had been pretty quiet all night, topped it off with: Thank u for coming.
Yeah, it was tasteless. But their rapport—their shared ability to laugh in the face of something as momentous as the search for their genetic father—was awesome. Milo didn’t tell JJ that. Nor did he share with JJ his revelation that—even though he and Hollis and Abby and Noah hadn’t been in contact for long—their connection was instantaneous. Already they’d shared things with each other that they’d never shared with anyone else. Like Noah thinking his father didn’t love him as much as he loved Josh, which was part of the reason he wanted to find their donor. Or Hollis feeling like only half a person. Milo didn’t tell JJ that the bond he felt with his half siblings had to be genetics at work. How else could it be explained? Milo didn’t want to rub JJ’s face in it. Because even though JJ barely talked about being adopted, he clearly had some strong feelings on the subject. But here JJ was, grinning and handing Milo a piece of paper. “Look what I made.”
“What is this?”
“A chart of physical traits. You get two genes for every trait, one from each parent.”
“‘Cleft in chin,’” Milo read. He looked up. “What’s that?”
“Butt chin. Like Ben Affleck. And Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas.”
“Fergie has a butt chin?”
“She does indeed. And look.” JJ tapped the paper. “‘The presence of a cleft is recessive and represents a homozygous condition.’ That means Fergie had to have inherited the recessive gene from both her parents.”
“Huh.” Milo looked at the list. Hair curl. Hairline. Dimples. Earlobes. Eye color. Freckles on cheeks. It went on and on.
“So once you have pictures of everyone…” JJ said.
“I have a few.”
“Yeah?”
“Well, not of my donor. Or anyone’s family. But the four of us have been shooting selfies back and forth for … you know … comparison purposes.”
“Got your phone?”
“Yeah.”
“Let me see.”
Milo hesitated,
fiddling with the paper in front of him.
“What?”
He looked at JJ. “Are you sure you’re okay with this?”
“What?”
“If this makes you feel … I don’t know … we don’t have to do this project—”
“Milo, man. It was my idea.”
“I know. I just want to make sure it doesn’t bring up … stuff for you.”
JJ looked at him, reddening slightly. “Of course it brings up stuff for me. She gave me away, you know? My birth mother. She gave away her own kid. I’ve spent my whole life wondering why she gave me up, and where she is, and what she looks like, and who my father is, and whether I have any brothers or sisters … but my parents won’t let me start searching until I’m eighteen, which feels like fricking forever, so the way I see it, I might as well help you while I wait.”
Milo was stunned. This was the most he’d ever heard JJ say about being adopted. “You sure?”
JJ shrugged. “If I can’t do this for myself, at least I can live vicariously through you.”
“Okay then,” Milo said.
“Phone, please.”
Milo took his phone out of his sweatshirt, handed it to JJ.
“Okay. Let’s see if we have any recessive butt chins.”
* * *
Heterozygous. Homozygous. Dominant. Recessive. Square jawline (Milo and Hollis). Oval face (Noah and Abby). Curly hair (all four). Hazel eyes (Milo, Hollis, and Noah). Green eyes (Abby). Straight noses (all four). Then there were all the physical traits Milo’s pictures couldn’t show. Hitchhiker’s thumb. Mid-digital hair. Tongue-rolling ability. Big toe length. There was so much the four of them could have in common that they’d never even considered.
All through the school day, long after his phone battery went dead, Milo’s head was spinning. It wasn’t until he got home and charged his cell that he saw he had three new voice mails, all from Abby. He called her back while he was sitting on his bed, holding JJ’s genetics chart in his lap. She answered on the first ring. “About time.”
Milo had never heard Abby’s voice before. They’d been emailing and texting for weeks, but this was the first time they’d spoken on the phone.
“You don’t sound like I thought you would,” he said.