I am (-Ginny).
And that scares me, scares me, scares me. Because I don’t know that girl.
36
EXACTLY 2:52 IN THE AFTERNOON,
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 2ND
My Forever Dad makes a breathing sound. “Ginny, please, stop checking your watch. I’m trying to talk with you.”
We are at the kitchen table. My Forever Sister is crying. It does that a lot. The sound makes me want to run upstairs and pick it up because I know exactly what to do to help it. But I don’t because I remember the most important rule.
“There are two things we need to talk about,” he says.
I am happy. He is using numbers and numbers make me glad.
“First, you have to stay away from your mother’s room. From our room, I mean. She’s in there all the time now with the baby because she needs some privacy. You can’t go in there anymore for any reason, and you can’t stand right outside the door listening. And when your mom comes downstairs with the baby, you have to stop telling her how to take care of it. No more advice on what to feed it or what it needs. And the most important thing is that you have to stop hovering so much. Give your mom some space, okay? She won’t put the baby down because she knows you’ll bend down over it and stare. It scares her, Ginny. It scares me, too. I know that’s hard to hear, but it’s the truth.”
“What is the second thing we need to talk about?” I ask. Because he finished with the first.
“The second thing is that I have the first letter,” he says. He puts a folded piece of paper on the table. His face looks a lot redder than it used to look and he takes more pills in the morning now. At night too. And sometimes he lies down on the couch to rest after he finishes talking to me and closes his eyes. And breathes deep and slow. “From your Birth Dad. Are you ready to read it?”
I nod my head yes.
“Getting to know your Birth Dad will be easier this way,” he says. “If the two of you exchange letters for a while, you’ll have more to talk about when you finally meet.”
“When will we finally meet?”
“We’re not sure yet. We’re going to give it a while and see how things go before we set a date.”
Upstairs the crying stops. I take a deep breath and uncurl my fingers. “Can I read the letter now?” I say.
“Sure.”
So I unfold the paper and read.
Dear Ginny,
I’m really glad to have the chance to talk with you. It sure has been a long time. By now you know that I’m your father. I met Gloria when a buddy of mine wanted a cat. He looked into Maine coons and set up a time to go see some. At your mom’s house. My buddy didn’t get a cat but I got a date. Your mom was the smartest girl I ever met. We dated for a while and then she said she was going to have a baby. I wanted to marry her. We even had plans for a wedding but she left with you a few days after you were born. I left to go to work and when I came back that night to the hospital she was gone. Apparently she went to Canada. I found her later back in Maine but she said she didn’t want to see me. I think another man was involved and maybe drugs too. Anyway it was over between us so I stayed away. Dads don’t really have any rights. I stayed in touch with her over the phone and email but that was the most she would allow. Then after a few years she changed her number. She stopped answering my emails and cut me out of the picture completely.
Then I heard about the kidnapping so I went to the police and told them everything I could remember. I said I didn’t think Gloria could pull off something like that because she’s not so great at keeping cool and they asked who could so I said her sister Crystal. Then I remembered the summer house she bought and the rest is history.
But I learned that day that you weren’t with Gloria anymore and that you were adopted. Your new folks seem pretty nice. They’re open to us getting to know one another. I hope you’re open to that too.
Some things about me. I drive truck. I haul big rigs up and down the coast. I’m not home a lot but I have a nice place and a girlfriend who takes care of things when I’m away. We even have a dog. A beagle named Sammy. We don’t have any kids of our own though.
So what do you say? Will you write me a letter? I hope you will.
Your Old Dad,
Rick
So I say, “Wait—why did he write that?” And point to the very last word.
“You mean Rick?”
I nod my head yes.
“That’s his name,” my Forever Dad says.
“His name is Rick?”
“It starts with the letter R,” he says. “You know, like red.”
“Humph,” I say and I start picking at the skin around my fingernails.
Rick is a small name. It sounds like lick or tick or dick which is a bad word. Rick is a fast name. It makes your mouth feel like too much cherry candy or like you have something small and bright made out of red plastic in there.
“How are you feeling?” he asks.
“I feel hungry,” I say. “And I feel like I should have a beverage. I should watch a video on my DVD player in my room and have a little drink. When is Rick coming over?”
“He isn’t coming over,” my Forever Dad says. “But he wants to know if you’ll write to him. Do you want to write him a letter?”
“Mostly,” I say. “But not today. It’s not on my list.”
“You could put it on your list if you wanted,” he says. “I could help you write it.”
I shake my head no. “Maybe tomorrow,” I say. “Can I watch my video now?”
“Don’t you want to talk about the letter?”
“No.”
Because I don’t. I already read it and I know what it says. It says that my dad drives truck and he wants to get to know me. I’m guessing the truck has plenty of room for all my things. I need time to go in my brain to think.
“I need to watch a video now,” I say. I stand up.
“All right, then,” my Forever Dad says. “You can watch your video. We’ll talk about this some other time.”
“And I need a beverage.”
“Then I’ll get you a beverage.”
37
EXACTLY 9:08 AT NIGHT,
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 2ND
I am in bed thinking. My quilt is spread out over my belly and legs. I am lying on my back.