I have two half siblings. My half brother was two years old the night my mom got pregnant with me. He’s in college now. My half sister is three years younger than me. They don’t know I exist, except maybe now they do. They don’t feel like siblings because we don’t have anything in common except for half of our genetics. It sounds like a lot. But it isn’t.
He has paid child support my whole life. Some of it is in a fund I can use for college. Some of it, my mom used for groceries or to make rent when I was little, before the last few years when her painting took off. Once or twice, she used it to buy me a new coat or pay a babysitter while she was working an extra shift. She explained this like she felt guilty, but that’s ridiculous to me. I don’t even know how I feel about having his money. Part of me thinks he owes me that, at least—that he should make at least some nominal sacrifice for being such an incredible asshat to my mom and to me. Another part thinks I don’t want to take anything that is his. Ever.
I claw my fingers down the portrait, and my nails dig up thin lines of paint.
Because it’s too late. There are already things of his that are mine—my goddamn eyes, which I want to scrape out of my head after meeting him. Maybe every time in my life that I’ve been hideously selfish . . . maybe that wasn’t the teenage self-centeredness that my mom mutters about. Maybe that’s him shining through. Maybe I’m also genetically predisposed to be an abandoner, a narcissist, a liar.
“I am not sorry about you and never have been a single day in my life; do you hear me?” my mother asked, that fierceness in her voice imploring me to nod. I did hear her, and I do know this, that I am her world, as she has told me throughout my whole life. She cleared her throat. “But I am so very sorry you didn’t wind up with the dad you deserve.”
I keep thinking that I’m a different Vivi than I was just days ago, and I don’t know how to be the new version. I just know I can’t go back to the endless possibilities. I have an answer. And I wish it was a different one.
I’m not saying I hate Jim Bukowski because, you know, I try really hard not to have hatred in my life. It’s just . . . you know that Sunday-night feeling, where the dread of reality sinks in, that you’ve mismanaged your time and now the anxiety of homework and the wasteland of early mornings and school stretches ahead of you? Well, I hope he has that feeling every minute of every day of his entire life. That’s all.
When the doorbell rings, I slump down to answer it because my mom went out for a while. It’s Officer Hayashi, in full uniform, looking stern—all business—as if I summoned him here. “You haven’t been at breakfast.”
I stare back at him.
“Do you need anyone arrested on your behalf?”
Hmm, now there’s an idea. “Well, if you happen to be in Berkeley, you’re welcome to arrest my father. The official charge is being a shitweasel slash never wanting to know me and hating that I’m alive.”
“Sounds like a moron.” His eyebrows lower in this protective way that makes me think he might actually growl. And I guess I expect him to say that he’s sorry or that he thinks I’d be a great daughter to have. Instead, he straightens. “But that’s life. Gotta deal with what you got.”
Oh, is that all I have to do? If only someone had told me sooner! That I just have to deal with what I’ve got. Snap! I think I just did it. I narrow my eyes at him. “Do you even have kids?”
He ignores me, turning to go. “You need to eat and get some fresh air. Won’t do you any good locking yourself in your house.”
He’s gone before I think of a comeback, so I slam the door and make myself oily black coffee. I push the French press down harder than necessary.
“Oh good, you’ve emerged,” my mom says, keys jangling as she comes through the front door. I think it’s the third day after my misadventure to Berkeley. “Did you even remember I was going to pick up your birthday present this morning?”
I glance up from my coffee. She’s still standing in the entryway, and I can’t see what she’s holding over the kitchen ledge. When she leans down, I hear the scrambling of feet.
A wriggly white pouf of a dog, no bigger than a loaf of bread, bursts into the kitchen, and her tiny claws are clicking all over the kitchen floor. It’s love at first sight, and I gasp.
“Wait, really?” I scoop up the dog, and she’s so warm and squirmy, complete with two little pink bows on her ears. “She’s mine?”
I’ve wanted a dog since before I understood words and certainly since before I could speak. People say they don’t remember their earliest years, but I swear I remember being in a stroller and pointing at passing dogs, trying desperately to communicate that I want that thing to be mine.
“She’s yours. Her owner moved into a retirement community, and she had no one to take care of her. Her name is Sylvia.”
“Sylvia,” I whisper. She is a Sylvia, saucy but innocent, elderly with her white hair but young in spirit. She wastes no time licking my neck. Yes, a stuffed animal come to life to keep me company in my hollowness.