I interrupt her. “So who was Evelyn, then? To you?”
“Evelyn? Oh, she was my mother’s cousin. They spoke once in a while before you were born, but I was such a wreck afterward, my mother didn’t know what to do. She heard Evelyn and her husband, God I can’t even remember his name, Tom, was it?” She taps her fingernail on the edge of the table, thinking. I don’t fill in his name, partially because I don’t want to divert the conversation. His name was Tim, a tall shadowy man I barely remember. Dark hair, Old Spice. She shakes her head. “Well, whatever. My mother had heard they wanted to adopt. I don’t know how or under what context. One of the bad nights, right before I ran away, Mother called her. Begged her. Evelyn didn’t want to at first, she said it could get messy with family. She wanted a baby to love, all her own. Not to lose, later, you understand. I guess that had happened before, an adoption fell through. We had to promise to never seek you out. That Evelyn would tell you on her own, when she felt the time was right.”
I appreciate this simple kindness. For all her chilly demeanor, she doesn’t have to give it to me, the reassurance that Evelyn’s hesitancy came from love, not rejection. She is, above all else, self-aware then.
She sits up straight, pulls her arms against her midsection, protective. “How is she, your mother?”
“She’s dead.” My voice is flat and I close my eyes. “You didn’t know?”
Her face freezes, her eyes go wide. “No. We . . . well the whole family sort of fell apart later. After my mom died. There was talk of a reunion at one point . . .”
The genealogy website. Growing up, I remember asking Evelyn about family. Other people had cousins, big Fourth of July barbecues and vacations, dramatic fights and people to call when your car broke down or you needed to borrow a hundred dollars. This is what I saw on television. At the time, she’d touched her eyebrow, shook her head. We have only each other, bud. I wonder now, had she wanted it that way? To protect me? Or to keep me?
Caroline leaned forward, her breath hot on my cheek. Her eyes studying my face, so close we could touch. But we didn’t. “Listen,” she said. “No one wanted to hurt either of you. It all happened so fast, and I was barely functioning. But you have to understand. Mother thought if she knew, she’d back out. She didn’t know there were two. That she wouldn’t want you both. I know it wasn’t the best thing to do, but you have to understand—”
My heart picks up speed. Two? “Both?”
Her hand flies to her mouth and between those long delicate fingers I hear, “I thought you knew. I thought that was how you found me. She knows about you. I just assumed she sent you.”
“Who? Who sent me? Who is she?” My mouth keeps asking questions my brain already knows the answers to.
“I had twins, Zoe. You have a sister.”
CHAPTER 20
“I don’t understand,” I say. “You’ve met her? Where is she?” I whip my head around, like she’s going to magically appear in the living room. My hands are shaking and a pulse throbs in my neck.
“I think she lives in Brooklyn with her parents. She was here, oh maybe three or four years ago? She knows about you. I told her, but she had already known. Her adoptive parents . . .” Caroline splays her hands outward and lets me fill in the missing information. Evelyn didn’t know everything. Why?
She takes a deep breath and stands up. “Her name is Joan, but hold on, I’ll get you all her information.” She scuttles out of the room on the balls of her feet, nervous. She’s had control of the conversation up to this point, and now she’s anxious. Impatient. She returns not more than a minute later holding an index card. She pauses in front of me, running her fingernail over the words, before she hands it over. “We didn’t keep in touch. It’s all the information I have.”
Her eyes are huge against her pale face. She’s beautiful, my mother. I look like her but in small ways. In person, our differences are obvious. I’m a cartoonish version of her, I’m drawn with a Magic Marker, deep confident lines. She’s sketched with an artist’s touch: feathery strokes and skittish shadows.
“She’s like me, nervous. I take medication, do you? Is that genetic? It was interesting, her mannerisms are so much like mine. You . . . not as much.” She studies me and I duck my head, studying the index card, the words sliding around as my vision blurs.
My sister’s name and address in Brooklyn are scribbled with disjointed handwriting, slanting one way then the other. Joan Bascio. I look up at Caroline questioningly.