“He’s a stockbroker,” Chip muttered. He cleared his throat. “If he was a spy, he’d probably be on the terrorists’ side.”
“Maybe he’s secretly working for the government,” Jonah said. “Maybe he’s like a double agent, and he’s pretending to launder money for some terrorists, but really he’s reporting everything to the government. And maybe if you call this number and blow his cover, like, five years of secret-agent work will go to waste, and they’ll have to start all over again. And it will all be your fault.”
Jonah had seen a movie once where something like that happened.
“You think my dad’s a hero?” Chip asked. “Fat chance.”
But he didn’t grab the phone back to begin dialing again. He just stood there, looking lost.
“I just want to know who I really am,” Chip said. His words came out as a whimper, the kind of sound no self-respecting thirteen-year-old boy would want anyone to hear him making.
Jonah decided not to make fun of him for it.
“I do, too,” Jonah said.
“You do?” Chip asked, and this, too, came out sounding pitiful.
Jonah nodded.
“Well, yeah. I mean, my parents are okay, and I guess it’d be possible to have a worse sister than Katherine. But sometimes I wonder…who do I look like? Are my birth parents good people who just kind of made a mistake? Or are they druggies, alcoholics, criminals…are they in jail? Mental hospitals? Did they have any other kids besides me? Did they—did they keep the other kids?”
Sometimes Jonah’s mom would say things like, “You have such great dimples and such beautiful eyes—do you suppose those came from your birth mother or your birth father?” Or, “You’re so good at math—wonder who you inherited that from?” It annoyed him, because he knew those lines came straight out of the adoption books. And, generally, people whose lives were going great—NFL quarterbacks, rock stars, famous actors and actresses, genius scientists—generally, they didn’t give up their kids for adoption. What bad things had he inherited along with the eyes and the dimples and the ability to glide through seventh-grade math?
Chip was nodding.
“Monday morning,” he said in a hoarse voice. “When I walked into school, I kept looking around thinking, ‘I could have a brother or sister here, and I wouldn’t even know it.’ So I stared at everyone, looking for curly hair and long skinny legs and nostrils that flare out a little….”
“Is that why you walked into that wall, on the way to lunch?” Jonah asked.
“Uh, yeah,” Chip said. He sounded embarrassed.
Jonah eased the Post-it note out of Chip’s hand. He waved it slightly in front of Chip’s eyes.
“This isn’t any good,” Jonah said. “No matter what, you’re always going to have more questions.”
“How do you know?” Chip challenged him. “Have you ever tried to get your questions answered?”
SIX
It was Cincinnati chili night. Mom liked to have themed dinners every so often, and lately she’d been on a geographic kick: spicy New Orleans jambalaya one week, thick New England clam chowder the next, authentic (she said) Mexican hot tamales the next. At least Cincinnati chili was fairly normal, though Jonah failed to see the point of putting chili on top of spaghetti, when Ragú worked just as well.
“Do you think…,” he started to say, but everyone was passing around the containers of shredded cheese and chopped onions, and no one seemed to hear him.
A few minutes later, while Katherine was chewing and actually had her mouth shut for once, he tried again.
“You know how you always said that if…”
Katherine finished chewing.
“Oh, I almost forgot!” she exploded. “Guess who says she’s trying out for cheerleader next year?”
“Do you mind?” Jonah asked. “I was talking first.”
Katherine took a gulp of milk.
“Okay, okay, go on,” she said. “But hurry up, because this is really funny!”
“All right,” Jonah said with injured dignity. “What I was saying was…I mean…” He swallowed hard.
“Would you just spit it out?” Katherine demanded.
Jonah glared at his sister. He could hear Chip’s question echoing in his head: Have you ever tried to get your questions answered?
“What was the name of the adoption agency where you, you know, got me?” he blurted.
For a moment, it felt like he’d thrown a grenade out into the center of the table. Even Katherine was speechless for once. Then Mom smiled.
“We’ve told you that before, but I guess you forgot,” she said. “It was called ‘Hope for Children.’ Awfully schmaltzy, I know, but it felt right to us then, because we had so much hope—and that was all we had. Until—”
“Okay,” Jonah said quickly, because he could tell she was about to launch into the miracle story ( the call out of the blue…the week before Christmas…everything we ever wanted…). He didn’t have the patience for that right now, not when he had so much to think about. Hope for Children was a stupid name, but he was relieved, somehow, that it wasn’t the Happy Family Adoption Agency, the same one that Chip’s family had dealt with. This made the matching letters about being one of the missing seem more like a coincidence, more like an ordinary seventh-grade prank.
Dad was wiping his mouth with his napkin.
“Was there anything else you wanted to know, Jonah?” he asked in a voice that was trying way too hard to sound casual. It was almost as bad as the time Dad had said, on a fishing trip, “You know you can ask me anything you want about puberty.”
“Um…,” Jonah couldn’t decide.
“Can we talk about something that isn’t ancient history?” Katherine interrupted.
“Katherine, wait your turn,” Mom said. “Jonah?”
Across the table, Katherine crossed her eyes and stuck out her tongue. Jonah looked down at his plate.