Joaquin was very, very quiet as he sat next to Maya, but she could see his head following each of Jessica’s movements.
“So,” Jessica said, giving them all a watery smile. “I bet you have some questions for me.”
“How did she die?” Maya whispered. It felt like she had both lost and gained something huge. Melissa was gone, but Jessica was still here. A door had been closed, but another had been opened.
Jessica nodded to herself as she looked down at her untouched glass of water. “It was a truck accident,” she murmured. “She was twenty-one, crossing the street, and she got hit by a trucker who ran a red light. He said he didn’t even see her. She died instantly, they said. She didn’t suffer. I worried about that, but that’s what they told us.”
“Did you know our dads?” Grace asked.
“Maybe I should just start at the beginning,” Jessica said, looking at each of them in turn as her eyes overflowed again. “Oh, I am so sorry,” she whispered. “I just haven’t seen Melissa’s face in so long, and now I’m looking at three versions of it and it’s so . . .” She fumbled for words. “All three of you are just so beautiful. You look just like her.”
Maya felt Grace’s hand press against her own, and she wrapped her fingers around Grace’s and squeezed tight. She was afraid she would start crying if she didn’t hang on to something, and Maya wanted to remember every single word of this conversation. She wanted to breathe in each memory of her mother until it filled her up and made her fly across a pink-streaked sky, warm with fading light.
“Do you,” Joaquin started to say, then cleared his throat. “Do you, um, have any pictures? Of Melissa?”
Jessica shook her head, her lower lip trembling. “Your grandfather, our dad, he disowned her when she got pregnant with you, Joaquin. She was seventeen, and our parents were just beside themselves. They kicked her out. Our dad, I think it just broke his heart. He burned all of the pictures of her.”
Maya thought of her own home, her parents, her bedroom, the photos on the stairs. She couldn’t imagine leaving any of them without having somewhere else to go.
Joaquin leaned forward, and Maya felt herself reach up and put her hand on his arm, anchoring him to her and Grace. “Did you know my dad?” he asked.
Jessica nodded, her eyes lighting up. “You should know, your parents were in love. They were high school sweethearts, they were so head over heels with each other. It was a little disgusting, actually.” Jessica chuckled to herself, wiping at her eyes. “She used to plan their wedding during study hall. He was so good to her, he just adored her.
“But he got deported. Melissa didn’t know she was even pregnant at the time. I would hear her cry in her bed every single night, and then she started throwing up. At first, we both thought it was just because she was so sad, but then, well . . .”
Joaquin nodded, his jaw set tight, his shoulders up around his ears. “Okay,” he said. “Do you remember his name?”
Jessica looked at him. “Did you not know? Your dad’s name was Joaquin. Melissa named you after him.”
“Oh,” Maya said softly, squeezing his shoulder. She couldn’t even imagine what that meant to him, but next to her, Joaquin was still, unmoving.
“Did he, um, did he have a family?” he asked.
Jessica nodded. “Yes, two parents and a little sister. They adored Melissa—she was always over at their house. They were all deported, just gone one day.” Maya could tell that Jessica was trying not to cry again. “Your mom, she just . . . it shattered her.”
Maya watched Joaquin’s jaw start to tense and flex. She tried not to think of what his life would have been like with this other family, rooting him to the ground, sheltering him in their wings.
“What happened when your dad kicked Melissa out?” Grace asked.
“Well, she met another boy at this restaurant where she was a waitress, and then she got pregnant with you, Grace. I was only fourteen at the time, but I used to go into the restaurant and she’d give me free Cokes. They agreed to give up the baby—you, I mean—for adoption. I think he only stuck around because Grace’s parents paid for rent, utilities, all of that while Melissa was pregnant with Grace. And then when Grace was gone, things got worse, and social services showed up, and yeah. It wasn’t a safe place for you, Joaquin.” Jessica looked down at the table, her finger tracing an invisible pattern.
“Is that when she gave me up?” Joaquin asked. “After that?”
Jessica nodded. “She was trying to get it together, get you back, but then she met Maya’s dad, who wasn’t great”—Maya suspected that Jessica was leaving out some important details, trying to spare them—“and then she got pregnant with Maya, and it all fell apart again. She couldn’t keep any of you. She couldn’t keep her own life together. I think losing you broke her.” Jessica wiped at her eyes, and Maya thought of Lauren possibly hurting and hopeless. Next to her, Grace sniffled quietly, and Maya held her hand tighter.
“Did you get adopted?” Jessica asked Joaquin, her eyes hopeful. “Were they a good family?”
Joaquin shifted a little in his chair. “Um, no. There was one family, but they got pregnant right before the adoption went through, and they only wanted one kid, so . . . yeah. Ended up back in the system for a while.”
Maya watched as Jessica’s face fell. “For how long?”
“My entire life.”
“But he’s with a really good family now,” Maya interrupted as Jessica started to cry again. “They’re crazy about him. They really love him a lot. They even bought him a car!” Maya wasn’t sure who she was talking to at this point, Jessica or Joaquin, but she knew they both needed to hear it. “Mark and Linda are really great people.”
“I’m okay,” Joaquin said softly. “Really. I’m fine now.”
Jessica got up and came back with a box of tissues. “This is for all of us, even though I may use most of them,” she said. “God, I just can’t believe that you’re all here. She wanted so badly to know the three of you. I know she wanted your parents to take Maya, Grace, but they couldn’t.”
“No, my grandma, she died from cancer right before Maya was born,” Grace said. “But they helped me find her and Joaquin after . . .” Grace’s voice faded out for a few seconds. “I had a baby a couple of months ago. I gave her up for adoption, too.”
There was a moment of silence as Jessica stared.
“But my parents are wonderful,” Grace said immediately. “They’ve been really supportive of me, nothing like what happened to Melissa. I’m very lucky. I have great parents. They love me a lot.”
“Oh, thank God,” Jessica sighed.
“And I have a good situation with her adoptive parents,” Grace said. “They send me pictures.” She opened up her phone, flicking to the photograph that Maya had seen the week before and holding it up for Jessica.
“She’s beautiful,” Jessica said, and Maya watched as Grace beamed, the pride shining through her like the sun.