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.”