From the big round window over my bed, I see leaves and branches and sky. My moms tried to keep me in the bedroom downstairs next to theirs, but I’d always wanted this. So when I turned twelve, I moved up here. My bird’s nest. A tower in the clouds. The walls are covered in photos—some snipped from old magazines, others professional prints I’ve ordered, framed and unframed, a total mishmash of animals, trees, insects, mountains, lakes, rivers, oceans. Pictures that I’ve seen and thought: this is our world and I’m lucky enough to live in it.
The owl hoots again.
Ginger is sound asleep on a cot across the room. There’s a breeze coming in the windows, making the curtains rustle. I listen to the rhythmic hum of the fan, Ginger’s soft in-and-out breaths. I should feel sleepier than I do.
I lie in bed, my feet at the wall, my head on the pillow—the headboard perfectly positioned in the middle of the room so I can see out the round window. The pale sliver of yellow moon smiles down at me through the trees.
There’s a row of small wooden drawers built into the wall next to my bed, mostly filled with treasures from outside—heart-shaped stones and dried flowers and bits of old pottery and glass that Mama and Mimmy and I have unearthed while gardening. I reach for the bottom drawer, my fingers wrapping around the pocket-size green notebook I’ve kept there for as long as I can remember. Because I can’t shake this morning’s breakfast conversation.
My moms don’t know about this notebook. Neither does Ginger or Noah.
Mostly it’s lists of things I’d tell Frank if I ever had the chance. Questions I’d want to ask him. There are notes about Mama and Mimmy, too, speculations about which one’s blood I have pumping through my own veins. Midnight scribbling usually fueled by some kind of disagreement, like Mama telling me I couldn’t die my hair purple, so of course that night Mimmy seemed like the better candidate to be Biological Mom. But some nights, even without any arguing, I couldn’t help but think about Frank before I fell asleep. Does he have a wife? A husband? Other kids? Does he live somewhere close or somewhere on the other side of the world? He’d been here, in Pennsylvania, at least once. To go to the cryobank near Philly, do his business in a little plastic cup, walk away with money in his hands. But that was almost two decades ago. Now? He could be anywhere. Including buried underground or piled up neatly inside a little metal urn.
I grab a pen from my nightstand. Cons, I write, squinting at the page in the dim moonlight. There are a lot of them, surely.
1. Hurting Mama’s and Mimmy’s feelings, even if Mimmy would support my decision.
2. Making them both feel like they’re not enough for me. Like this family, us, isn’t enough.
3. Complicating and confusing everything.
4. Feeling crushed/disillusioned/broken if I find out that Frank: is dead; is a horrible human being; doesn’t care even a tiny little 0.01% bit that I exist. Being dead might be better than being horrible. (Though maybe I’m horrible for even thinking that, which makes the genetic odds of him being horrible, too, more likely… )
5.
Other cons? That can’t be it. Though I suppose hurting Mama’s and Mimmy’s hearts or hurting my own heart are both two fairly big potential risks.
But to keep it balanced and fair, just in case: Pros.
1. Learning more about who I am and who/where I came from.
2. Answering some of the questions in this stupid notebook so I can sleep better at night instead of doing things like this, such as: Am I the only one? Or do I have half-siblings? Why did Frank donate? Does Frank wonder about me? Does Frank love nature documentaries as much as I do? Does Frank hate fake fast food burgers, too? Does Frank have blue eyes like mine? Does Frank have the same scary dreams about flying over a never-ending icy ocean? Do any of these dumb questions even matter? But if they don’t, why do I keep asking them???
3. No more worrying/wondering about the truth because I’ll know and whatever it is can’t be that bad because it won’t change anything about my life with Mama and Mimmy.
Because no matter what, I don’t actually want him in my life. It’s not about that. No. I don’t need him to start playing dad. It’s just about knowing. Scratching an itch.
I put the pen down. I can’t decide anything for a month anyway.
I shove the notebook away and slide the wooden drawer shut.
Chapter Three
IT would be blasphemous to let peach cobbler go to waste.
After Ginger goes home the next morning, I try again.
The sun is hidden behind a vast wall of steely gray clouds. I can smell the rain, even if it’s not here quite yet. Hopefully we’ll have at least a temporary break from the heat.
I pause in front of Max’s porch, staring up at the house. Waiting for what, I’m not sure. Maybe for someone or something to lurch out at me from behind hedges that clearly haven’t been trimmed in decades. They tower above me like strange, amorphous green monsters. But then I hear a voice inside. I step on the first stair, expertly move straight to the third and onto the porch.
It only takes one knock before the door swings open.
A girl stares up at me. She’s petite, but if Max hadn’t told me his sister was thirteen, I would have assumed she could be our age. She must spend hours studying YouTube makeup tutorials, because her cheeks and eyes and lips look airbrushed, they’re so perfect. Even Ginger would be in awe. Thick black-and-blond box braids dangle down her back. She’s wearing a pink dress that is definitely too cool for a
