I get my first glimpse through the trees. Elliot, in a gray T-shirt and shorts, coming up the driveway. Surprisingly quickly. Earbuds in, mouthing along to whatever music is playing from his phone. Frank Zappa would be appropriate.
I take a deep breath and step onto the road.
My heart races, an unsettling thump-thump-thump. It’s like I not only climbed the hill, but ran the whole way to the top.
Elliot reaches the end of the driveway, eyes widening when he realizes he’s not alone. He slows, then stops, staring at me as if he might be imagining that I’m here. “Calliope?” he says, too loudly, overcompensating for his music.
“Hello.” I lift my hand to wave, but it stalls somewhere in the middle, stiff and unmoving.
“Uh, can I help you?” He takes out one earbud, then the other, and shoves them in his pocket. “Are you on a morning run, too?”
“No, I’m no runner.” I laugh, an awkward, high-pitched sound, and force myself to move closer, cross over the rest of the road to the start of the driveway. I don’t stop until I’m standing right in front of him.
Even with the smattering of grays, I can tell that his hair had been dark, brownish black, not auburn like mine. His nose is strong, angular, as different from mine as a nose could be. My face is heart shaped, his more triangular. But he’s watching me with clear blue eyes, and his smile shows two deep dimples. His lips are full like mine, too, especially round on the bottom, and with two distinct points at the top, like two mountains on an otherwise flat plain. It’s not everything—eyes, dimples, lips—but it’s something.
“Calliope? Are you okay? Do you need anything?”
“Did you write me a letter?” I blurt out. I don’t have the energy for subtlety or nuance.
“Did I—?” His wide eyes study me, searching for greater meaning.
It’s fascinating in a purely objective sense, the way his face plays out the complex chain of emotions that come in rapid succession—bewilderment, recognition, shock, and, lastly and most emphatically, horror.
More subjectively, I feel every reaction in every bone and cell of my body. Especially as I start to recognize tiny, painful familiarities in the planes of his face. The lift of his brows, the twist of his lips, the crinkling of his chin. I’ve seen those same expressions in photos. In mirrors.
“No.” He says it loudly. Like volume will somehow make it more resolute. More true. I swear the leaves around us tremble in response.
“No, you didn’t write me a letter?”
“I did write a letter.” His fingers tear through his hair, leaving it sticking up in all directions, like he’s been shocked. Which, I suppose, he has been. “But it wasn’t to you. It couldn’t have been to you.”
“How do you know? If it’s the letter I received, there was no name at the top. You didn’t know my address. You knew nothing about me. Only that I existed.”
“But… it could have gone anywhere. The other side of the country. Hawaii. Alaska. Not to my next-door neighbor. Not to my son’s—” His mouth hangs open, slack, his whole face seeming to lose the elasticity needed to hold everything in place.
“Girlfriend.” I finish for him.
“Maybe they made a mistake. Switched names in the system.”
He’s staring at me, waiting for me to respond.
I say nothing.
“You can’t be sure.” His last attempt. “We could do a paternity test. You can order them online. Do it at home.”
I wonder why he knows this. I don’t think I want to know the answer. “If that’s what you need to be sure.”
“And you don’t?”
“I think the cryobank would go out of business if they were keeping bad records.”
He reflects on this, really looking at me, maybe for the first time. And then he nods, defeated. “I just can’t believe it’s… you. After all these years. That you’re my daughter.”
I stiffen at the word. “Not a daughter,” I say, correcting him. “Donor offspring. Those are two hugely different things.”
“Right. Yes. I’m sorry. Your moms—do they know?”
I shake my head.
“And Max?”
I shake my head again.
He nods slowly. “Okay. When will we tell him?”
“Not we. Me. I will tell him.”
“He loves you, you know. He hasn’t told me, but I can tell.”
I rub my foot against the gravel driveway, watch the glitter catching in the morning sun. “Promise me you won’t tell him. Please. It needs to come from me.”
He sighs, the kind of racking full-body sigh that would usually be exaggerated, but in this moment, it’s the only kind of sigh there is. “Fine. I promise. I’ll let you tell him.”
I nod, still not meeting his eyes. They look too much like mine.
“I don’t need to go on my run, if…”
I glance up, curious.
“We could go to the diner or something? If you want to get breakfast. Talk.”
It’s too much. At least right now.
“Not today. But… maybe sometime?”
He nods. “You know my number.”
“I do.”
“I’m glad you told me.”
“Not really a choice, was there?”
“I guess not. But still. I know this had to be hard. Maybe the hardest thing you’ve ever had to do. I hope things get easier, once you tell Max. I bet you can still be good friends.”
Easier.
He says it like he knows me. Understands me
I turn my back to him, pick up the thermos, and start walking home.
I call the cryobank as soon as they open for the day, even though I’d acted so certain for Elliot.
Even though I am certain.
They assure me they don’t make mistakes about donor matches. The system is “foolproof.” The calm, patient voice on the other end of the line checks, though, referencing both files, just to be certain. I’m not sure if she’s technically allowed to do this, but she does. Possibly because she hears my desperation and feels pity. And because I obviously know his name, his identity.
