I don’t need to knock. Being welcome at this blue house any day, any time, has been a constant, something that was decided long before I can remember.
What else was decided before your memories begin?
“Hey, Dara!” Niya calls out cheerfully from the dining room. She’s setting the table for dinner, complete with the colorful little chutney bowls I love so much. A gardening podcast is piping through the stereo, and the house is rich with the scent of Ramesh’s famous masala sauce. Sam’s dad was born in India and brought all his mother’s recipes with him when he moved to the US to go to college. Niya’s of Indian descent too, but she’s lived here her whole life.
I lift a hand in greeting as I make my way downstairs to Sam’s room, but I don’t say anything. I don’t trust myself to; there’s too much going on in my head, and I don’t know what will come out. Niya is Mom’s best friend. What if she knows Mom’s been lying to me? What if all those times we sat around that dining room table, eating malai kofta or tandoori chicken or mushroom pizza from the one pizza place in town, she and Mom were holding a silent exchange about how pitifully clueless I was? Or what if she doesn’t know and I arouse suspicion in her too, without even having a foothold on what’s going on myself? I just need to get to Sam.
He’s focusing so intently on his computer screen that he doesn’t notice when I appear in the entrance to his bedroom. His a-little-too-long-to-be-called-short hair has fallen in his face, and his fingers move skillfully over the trackpad.
Sam works with photographs, but he’s more than a photographer. He takes pictures, uploads them onto his computer, and then Photoshops them. Not the lame kind of Photoshop where stick-figure models are made even skinnier, or a zit on the chin of some movie star is erased. Sam uses Photoshop to make art. He plays with our expectations, our preconceived notions of what’s “normal,” and turns them on their head, so something in the photo is off, but at first glance it looks like nothing’s amiss. You have to stare a minute to figure out why you feel so unsettled. And then you see it—the apples on a tree are actually mini pumpkins. A person’s smiling mouth has been flipped upside down. It’s really cool.
I’ve asked him to make a piece for me a million times, but he’s always said it doesn’t work that way. He needs to wait to be inspired; he can’t force it. Still, he’s given his art to his parents, his sister, Annita, and Sarah Quick. I never understood why he could be “inspired” for them, but not for me.
Especially Sarah. Sam admitted once that Sarah was jealous of me, though I can’t for the life of me figure out why. I should have been the one who was jealous of her, the way she got to take up all his time, and inspired a Sam Alapati original (a seascape with light-pink seagulls that I only got to see once before it was relegated to Sarah’s bedroom wall). Jealous of how easy school was for her, and how she made friends everywhere she went. She was the valedictorian and the homecoming queen. Sam’s had a few girlfriends, but the Sarah relationship was the longest so far—about a year. She had zero reason to be jealous of me.
“Hey,” I say. My voice sounds strained. The unthinkable thoughts are fighting their way to my mouth. It won’t be long before I lose the battle. I close the door.
He looks up and quickly snaps his laptop closed. “Hey! How did the talk with—” Once he gets a good look at me, his face falls. “What’s wrong?”
I sit on his bed and hug my knees.
“Dara?”
The crazy is dancing around on my tongue now. I’ll let the more reasonable possibility out first. If Sam agrees it’s feasible, or even likely, I won’t ever have to voice the other one. “You haven’t heard our moms talking about me being adopted, have you?”
“Adopted?” he says.
I nod.
“Like, Mellie’s not your birth mom?”
I nod again.
“No chance,” he says right away. “If you were adopted she would have told you. Why would she hide it?”
What he’s saying makes sense, I know. Adoption is normal. If I were adopted, Mom would have shown me the pictures long ago and explained about my birth parents and wouldn’t have had to make up a lie about a one-night stand. It doesn’t add up.
The scarier option finds its way to my throat. I swallow it back.
“Dara, what happened? Where is this coming from?”
I clear my throat. “You were right.”
He’s confused. “About what?”
“Remember how the yearbook staff asked everyone in the senior class to contribute a baby picture, and I only had the few from my baby book to choose from, and you said that was weird, considering how many photos of me as an older kid Mom keeps around the house?”
I’d never realized this until Sam pointed it out. But when I asked Mom about it, she told me that when we moved to the house in Francis, the movers lost a few boxes and the photo albums and scrapbooks were in one of them. Most of the pictures from my early childhood and the pictures from Mom’s life before me … all gone. And it wasn’t like she could ask her estranged parents for copies. Sam told me there should be digital backups of them somewhere, but Mom seemed so sad about the pictures being lost that I didn’t press her on it. Now, though, as a parade of red flags marches before my eyes, I know I should have asked.
“You were right,” I say again. “Those weren’t the only baby pictures she had of me.” I take another breath. “I found something today.”
He uses his heels to wheel his chair closer to me. When he reaches the edge of the bed, he leans forward, forearms on his thighs, and says, softly, “Tell me.”
I chew on my lip. I’m actually glad, in a twisted way, for the opportunity to recount the inexplicable insanity of what I found and how I found it. Because if my mouth is filled with all those words, then the scariest possibility of all can’t find a way out. Yet.
I go through the whole story, describing every picture, the people, the birth certificate, everything. It’s not hard; each item from that box is emblazoned on my memory.
“Huh,” he says when I’m finished.
I stare at him. Wait for more. It doesn’t come. “That’s it? ‘Huh’?”
“Sorry. I just … I don’t really know what to say.”
“Doesn’t it seem like adoption could be a possibility?”
“Mellie wouldn’t have kept that secret from you,” he insists.
“Well, clearly, she was keeping something secret from me!” I snap. He looks at me warily. I let out a harsh sigh. “Fine. What do you think it is, then?”
“I have no idea.”
There’s silence for a minute. I’d hoped he would be able to help. See something I didn’t—an explanation so obvious, so boring, it passed me by unnoticed. But now he’s going to make me say it. The scarier thought. I can’t keep it in anymore. “Sam, do you think I was kidnapped?”
It’s absurd. Utterly impossible. Mom isn’t capable of something like that. But the pictures, the name change, Marcus and Celeste … they have to mean something, and it’s the only other thing I can think of that fits.
My heart is pounding as I wait for his answer. Then he does the last thing I expect: He starts to laugh. A lot. Loud, rolling laughter.
“Sam!” I hit his arm. “This is serious!”
“Kidnapped? This isn’t Dateline.”
“The only reason Dateline is even a thing is because this kind of stuff happens,” I counter. “And no one on that show ever thought it would happen to them.”
Sam is still laughing. “No way. You’re not adopted, and you were not kidnapped. You’re definitely Mellie’s daughter.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“You have a lot in common. You’re both independent and driven. You both really like spicy food, more than anyone else I’ve met.”
“That proves nothing.”
“Okay, then, your eyes. They’re the same as Mellie’s.”
“Lots of people have blue eyes. We don’t really look alike in any other way.”
“You make similar expressions sometimes.”
“Learned behavior,” I shoot back. “And what about the woman in the pictures? She looked just like me, Sam.”
“Maybe she’s a relative? Maybe your mom has a sister.”
“She does,” I say slowly, considering it. “She’s older.” I asked my mom once why she decided to become a nurse, and she said it was because she and her sister used to play hospital with their dolls when they were little, and it was one of her only good memories from her childhood. “Her name is … Josie? Joanne? Something like that.”
“There you go. Maybe they kept in touch back then.”
I shake my head. “I’m pretty sure the woman in the photos is Celeste Pembroke.”
“Why?” Sam asks. “Is she wearing a name tag in any of them?”
“Of course not. But Celeste Pembroke is the name of my ‘mother’ on my birth certificate. And those pictures are pretty clearly of parents with their daughter. Plus, Marcus Hogan was a tennis player, and there are pictures of the man and me on a tennis court. So if he’s Marcus, she’s got to be Celeste. And, all that aside, if Mom knew these people, if it really was her sister or whatever, Mom would have been in the pictures too.”
“She could have been taking the photos …” He doesn’t sound convinced, though.
“All of them? She didn’t want to be in a single picture with her own baby? I don’t buy it.”
Sam’s lack of response is proof of his agreement. The room goes quiet again. The sounds of Niya’s gardening podcast travel through the ceiling. A chill, defiant of the summer heat and the lack of AC in Sam’s room, passes over my skin.
“Okay, there is one other possibility,” he finally says.
Hopefully, it’s one that trumps kidnapping. “What?”
“Maybe you lived with other people when you were a baby. Maybe Mellie had you but then gave you to those people for a little while. And she was too ashamed about it to tell you.”
“No. The birth certificate, Sam. She wasn’t listed as my parent.”
“Oh yeah.”
“I really don’t think she gave birth to me,” I say quietly.
The need for answers tightens its chokehold on me. I have to confront Mom. And to think that just this afternoon I was nervous to start a conversation about tennis.
I stand up. My limbs feel heavy. “I have to go.”
“Where?”
“Home.” She won’t be home for hours yet, but I need to be there when she arrives. I need to think about what I’m going to say.
He nods, understanding. “Call me?”
“Yeah.”
I wait for Mom in the living room with my phone in my hands.
I text her. Are you working a double tonight?
No, she texts back a few minutes later. Be home by nine.
I don’t know whether to be relieved or even more anxious.
When I close my eyes, I’m on the court of a tennis stadium. But instead of fans in the stands, each blue plastic seat holds another question or disturbing possibility or smiling stranger from the photos. And the rows of seats are endless, climbing toward the sky, with no exits anywhere.
Reaching past Mom’s box, still on the coffee table, I grab the TV remote. I scroll by rote through the saved programs on the DVR and select one of the old broadcasts of the US Open. I save all the women’s matches from the quarterfinals through the finals and rewatch whenever I’m stressed or feeling down or need a distraction. The sounds and rhythm of the matches are soothing, like a lullaby, and watching the players in all their glory always lifts my spirits and gets my head back on straight. Watch. Learn. And then go practice some more. The DVR is nearly full with the recordings, so each week Mom has to watch her own shows immediately and then delete them in order to make room for whatever is scheduled to record in the coming days. She wanted to change cable companies last year and I wouldn’t let her because I couldn’t bear to return the box and give up these files.
But right now, even the thrill of the edge-of-your-seat 2015 semifinals match between Serena Williams and Roberta Vinci can’t take my mind off reality. I love this match because I never know how to feel watching it—Serena is my hero and I always want her to be number one, but there’s also something so infectious about underdog Roberta’s excitement and awe that she’s winning the match. You can’t help but root for her too. It’s the perfect example of how tennis can get inside your bones and make you feel a million feelings at once. How—despite the odds or the public’s expectations—anyone, with hard work, skill, and desire, can make it to the top.
Today, though, the shapes and colors flicker across the screen, but I don’t really see them. The what-ifs and scenarios in my mind are too loud, too overbearing.
Three hours later, Mom gets home.
“Hi, honey. Did you eat dinner?” she says, starting to head to her room to change out of her scrubs like always. But then she notices that I’m just sitting there, unmoving, the match long over, the “Delete Program?” message on the TV screen. Her gaze lands on my face, and I have no idea what she sees, but her smile fades and her eyes crease. “Is everything all right?”
Then she notices the box. It takes a second, but it happens: Her features rearrange into what can only be described as alarm. She knows she’s been caught. Her eyes begin to dart around, minimally but rapidly, the evidence of her thoughts going a million miles an hour: What does Dara know? How did she find out? Can I lie my way out of this one too? Or will I finally have to come clean?
Might as well get right to it.
“Was I kidnapped?” My tone is calmer now. Over the past few hours, the idea has somehow become less shocking.
She jolts in disbelief. “Were you what?” she says. She’s not full-out laughing like Sam, but there is a bewildered chuckle in her voice.
“Kidnapped,” I say again. “Did you take me from my real parents?”
She lowers herself into the big purple chair across from the couch. “Of course not.”
“Okay, was I adopted, then? Or did I live with people other than you when I was a baby?”
“No,” she whispers. “Dara …”
I toss open the box’s lid and grab a fistful of photographs. Mom’s face goes white. “Who are Marcus Hogan and Celeste Pembroke? Why is my name different on my birth certificate? Tell me what’s going on!” There it is—the break in my voice that was bound to appear. But I will not cry. Not yet.
She looks up. “It’s not obvious?”
The genuine surprise in her expression takes me off guard. “What’s not obvious?”
Mom doesn’t say anything right away. She just studies me, and the room, and her own hands, as if she’s trying to memorize everything before it changes. She looks sad. And scared. Something tells me that whatever comes out of my mother’s mouth next is going to alter my life forever.
She gets up, crosses to the coffee table, and reaches for the last thing I’d expect—the bottles of medication. What does that have to do with anything?
She sits on the couch beside me, and takes a wavering breath. One pill bottle is cradled in each of her palms. “Dara, you were not kidnapped and you were not adopted. You are my biological daughter.”
“But then who is the woman in the pictures? The one who looks like me? Is she your sister?”
Mom shakes her head weakly. “That is Celeste Pembroke. She was … your mother.”
The words themselves make perfect sense—that’s what I suspected, from the moment I laid eyes on the blonde in the photos. But in order for words to have real meaning, you need context. And here there is none. “You just said you are my mother.”
“No, I said you are my biological daughter.”
“Stop talking in riddles, for God’s sake!” I nearly shout. “Just tell me the truth!”
Mom opens the box and selects a photograph. Then she takes in another breath and speaks on the exhale, the most fragile of whispers. “Celeste was your biological mother.” She points to the blonde woman. “I am your biological … father.” Her trembling finger shifts to the man. “This is me.”