I always knew where to get booze for a high school party. I could just steal a bottle of rotgut vodka from underneath the front seat of my mother’s truck. It didn’t matter how many times I stole one; another bottle always appeared.
Our fighting escalated. I had little respect for my mother or Glenn, so I refused to acknowledge their rules. One day Glenn had enough of my defiance. “If you don’t like it, get the hell out,” he shouted at me.
“I will,” I screamed.
And I did. First I went to my grandparents for a few weeks. Then—encouraged by my forgiving Grandma to give Mom and Glenn another shot—I went back home. But it was still unbearable.
“Cheryl,” I cried, “I don’t know what to do. I can’t live with them.”
“Why don’t you come stay with me?” Cheryl said.
She checked with Mary and Dick, who, as always, welcomed me into their home. At the time, Mary and Cheryl’s middle brother had moved to Iowa for a few months for Mary’s work, and her oldest brother was in college. So it was just me and Dick and Cheryl. Cheryl was sad that her mother was gone and was more than happy to have my company. So was Dick.
In those months that I lived on Appaloosa Way, Dick made us breakfast every day. Those mornings were sweet: Cheryl and I listened to music while we got dressed and did our makeup for school, like two normal sisters in a normal family, singing along to Sheryl Crow.
All I wanna do is have some fun.
I’ve got a feeling I’m not the only one.
After school, we did our homework in the den while Dick puttered around in the kitchen. When he asked us to be home by a certain time, we complied without argument. When he asked us to help with the dishes, we didn’t complain. No one was drinking. No one was fighting. The police didn’t come to the door. It was a vacation from my real life.
But eventually I went home. I knew who my family was. I knew where I belonged.
VI.
The night before Marcus graduated from high school, my father came to Richland. He and Marcus stayed up all night talking. He told Marcus a long story about working for a loan shark in Massachusetts and being involved in a shootout while trying to collect money, and having a friend who was able to get him a driver’s license under another name and a plane ticket to Seattle. He said that he had two sons in Michigan. He hinted that his last name was really DeMatteo. When Marcus relayed all this new information to me, I was more confused than ever.
“I don’t even know what my name is,” I cried to Cheryl one night while I was staying at her house. “It might not even be Solo. I don’t even know who I am.”
I was a teenager. I was self-conscious. I was embarrassed that my father was homeless, that my mother was a drunk, that my brother was in constant trouble with the police, that I wasn’t even sure of my last name. I didn’t talk about it to anyone, except sometimes to Cheryl.
But inside, I told myself that all this bullshit was making me tougher. I was perversely proud of all these challenges, fiercely protective of my strange family tree. I was a survivor.
CHAPTER FOUR
Somewhere—Anywhere—Far Away
One evening, my mom and Glenn called me into the living room and told me to sit down.
Oh shit. What had I done this time?
“Hope, we don’t think you can play ODP this year,” Glenn said.
I stared at him in shock. I was in high school and I’d already been playing in the Olympic Development Program for years. I was in the regional pool. I was being scouted by top college coaches.
“It’s just very expensive,” my mother said. She looked unhappy. My mother had been laid off from Hanford. The economy in Richland rose and fell with every election cycle and federal budget fight, and Hanford was dependent on government funding, leading to a seesaw of hirings and layoffs. My mother was a victim of the latest round of job eliminations, and Glenn was on disability. They were about to file for bankruptcy.
I understood that finances were a strain. What I didn’t understand was how they could think about taking away the most important part of my life. Soccer was my way out, how I was going to make it in the world. Between club soccer and high school soccer, I played seven days a week, and as soon as the fall soccer season ended, I played varsity basketball. In the spring and summer, there were ODP tournaments. I was working hard with a goal in sight—a college, one far away. The recruiting letters were filling up our mailbox. I loved counting them, eager to accumulate more and more. They validated all my sweat. I kept the letters in two big binders—one black and one white—and I often shut my bedroom door and flipped through them, envisioning my escape. I imagined what the schools were like, what I’d look like in the team uniform, how it would feel walking across campus somewhere far, far away, like North Carolina or California. I would leave Richland behind.
And now they wanted to take it away from me. “You can’t do this to me,” I shouted. “This is my life. This is how I’m going to go to college.”
Glenn and my mom looked
