Chapter 11
Eleven
As I help unpack the groceries, Valencia asks what I did while she was gone. I tell her about checking out the backyard and
the boathouse and meeting Miles next door.
Her face lights up. “Oh, that’s wonderful that the two of you got to catch up! Do you want to invite him over for dinner tonight?
I mean, JT is coming, so I guess you could invite a friend, too.”
Shit.
Of course Miles knew Nate. Which is why he looked at me that way.
Valencia catches the look on my face. “Oh.”
“I . . . I didn’t realize I had met him before.”
She sighs and sets down the zucchini she was about to put in the fridge, then walks around the kitchen island and pulls me
into another hug. I let my body relax so she can squeeze me tighter. It feels wonderful. Everything in my mind is telling
me not to get too close to this woman. Not to let her touch me, because what’s the point? I’m leaving soon. But the second
she does, I can’t help but give in. It’s like when she hugs me, all those overwhelming feelings get obliterated into dust
and released into the world, away from me. Is this what other kids get from real parents?
“I’ve decided I’m going to treat this whole thing like a traumatic brain injury,” Valencia says.
“At least until Dr. Zapata tells me it’s not healthy.
Or maybe it will be your brother who does that.
You and Miles were great friends. The two of you were together all the time and, honestly, I think he took your disappearance almost as hard as we did. ”
That explains why he looked so hurt when I didn’t recognize him. She lets me go and puts the last few groceries in the refrigerator,
then motions for me to follow her out of the kitchen.
“Come on,” she says.
I follow her up to my room and she opens the closet door. She pulls out one of the cardboard boxes and slides it over to the
stegosaurus rug, then sits down beside it and rips away the tape keeping the box closed.
She pats the floor next to her and I sit cross-legged as she opens the box.
The first thing she pulls out is a framed picture of Nate and Easton. Nate is probably four years old and his hair is lighter.
Easton’s hair is almost black-brown and wet. He looks to be seven or so. Nate is wearing a Mickey Mouse T-shirt, while Easton
has Ninja Turtles on his. Nate’s eyes are closed as someone pours water over his head from a souvenir cup of some kind.
“This was when we were visiting your grandmother in Florida,” Valencia says. “Marcus’s mother—not mine, who you’ll meet tonight.
You probably don’t remember his mother, so I should tell you she died a year after this picture was taken. Your grandfather
on your dad’s side died three years ago, and my dad died the year after you . . .” She tries to figure out what word she’s
going for. “Disappeared.”
Why did she pause? Did she almost say died but had to correct herself so she didn’t say it in front of me? Because she told herself Nate was dead for all those years?
“Sorry” is all I say.
“Don’t be; they lived a good life and were kind and wonderful people. But this day—oof! This was when we went to Disney World,
and it was almost a hundred degrees and humid as hell. Easton wanted to get on the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train ride and there
were no FastPasses, so we were stuck waiting in line for two hours. I thought you were going to kill Easton. This was when your father decided to start pouring water on the two of you so you’d stop bickering.”
She laughs at the memory, and I can’t help but smile with her. She puts the picture on the bedside table and reaches for another
item from the Nate box.
“Oh! It’s Nanook!” It’s a husky stuffed animal that looks very loved. Its right front leg has a tear in the seam with stuffing
coming out and its tail looks like it was sewn back on more than once. “You got this on the boardwalk. I had a dental convention
in Atlantic City, so your father drove you kids up for the weekend and we went to Wildwood one night. You wanted this dog
so bad, but you had to do that game where you shoot water in the fake clown’s mouth to blow up a balloon. Do you know that
game?”
I decide that even post-kidnapping Nate would know that game, so I nod.
“Well, you felt bad about spraying water at the clown, so you didn’t want to play it but wanted the stuffed animal.
I think your dad paid forty bucks for this thing just to bypass the game.
Meanwhile Easton gladly sprayed the clown and won two prizes.
Your dad also named him Nanook, but I don’t think we realized until after that it might be cultural appropriation since it’s an Inuit word.
If you want to keep him, I’d consider a name change. ”
She hands him off to me and I look at the fake blue eyes, trying to recall whether there was anything like either of these
moments in my own childhood. My parents would never take me to Disney World. First, they didn’t have the money, but they also
believed Disney was trying to corrupt children, pulling them further away from God. I’ve never even seen a Disney movie.
We did go to the carnival that was set up annually in the field between the church and the firehouse. But I didn’t get to
play games. I’d work the church booth with my parents and collect donations or hand out prayer cards, cheap plastic rosaries,
and small desk calendars with a picture of the church printed on them. Then they would let me spend the tickets we were “paid”
with to go on some of the shoddily constructed rides.
And, yes, they had the water gun game.
Valencia pulls out every item in the box, explaining the stories behind them.
Nate’s baby book with pictures of the day he was born, four-year-old Easton kissing his forehead in a posed manner for the camera, and the first few years of Nate’s life.
Class pictures from kindergarten and first grade.
An old duck costume from the Mother Goose play he was in during first grade—“We thought you’d be taller than Easton, actually,” she says, holding up the flip-flops with orange plastic webbed feet stapled to the thong.
“We had to make these special for you because your feet were too big for the plastic duck shoes they bought.”
Listening to Valencia talk about Nate gives me conflicting emotions that I don’t know what to do with. On the one hand, I
love listening to her talk about him. She does it with so much love and admiration, I can’t help but feel that same love from
her. On the other, it makes me feel strange and uncomfortable because my real parents aren’t like this at all. They didn’t
take any pictures of me growing up, they didn’t share fun stories—if they existed. My grandmother was the only person who
ever showed me that family members could love each other.
It feels similar to all this.
And, yes, it’s not real and I have to keep telling myself that. Because I’m not real. But sometimes—like when Valencia shows me the candid she took of Marcus cheering on Nate at peewee soccer—it feels real. I know it’s not for me, but I wish it were.
For a second, I wish there were another world where I was born to the Beaumonts instead of to my parents. Even though Marcus
was disappointed when he learned Nate didn’t like playing soccer, they supported Nate in whatever he wanted to do.
But then I remind myself we aren’t in that world, and Nate is real. And he was kidnapped. Or even killed. And the person who did that might have been here earlier today.
Valencia looks up from the award Nate got in first grade—best line leader—her eyes glassy. She reaches out and rubs my neck
lovingly.
“I want you to know that I’m proud of you. I always will be, no matter what.”
My breath catches in my throat, and I can’t speak because my chest is so full. So I nod. I want to believe her, but something won’t let me. It won’t let me trust that this is the truth coming out of her mouth, because I know the truth.
Parents say they’re proud of you and they always will be, because they’re supposed to say that. But it’s not true. That unconditional
love everyone spouts off about is conditional. Conditional on how they want you to live your life according to their own rules and beliefs.
I can’t help but wonder if six-year-old Nate ever did something that caused Valencia’s unconditional love to waver. If he
hadn’t disappeared, would she even still feel this way about him?
She puts the award back in the box and glances at her watch. “I should get dinner started. Stay here and go through this stuff.
See if there’s anything you want to pack away, throw out, or keep. Put whatever you don’t want to throw away in the box and
we’ll put it in the attic with Easton’s stuff.”
Then she kisses the top of my head and leaves.
I find another photo, this one loose at the bottom of the box. It’s Valencia in front of a small office building with a sign
that reads “Millbrook Dental Partners.” Valencia holds Nate in her arms while Easton stands beside her with his tongue out.
I want to believe Valencia that the Beaumonts had this picture-perfect little family, but something is stopping me. Maybe
it’s my own trauma and, yeah, I should own that. It doesn’t feel like it’s that, though. My gut keeps telling me to run. That
I can’t trust her. Can’t trust this family.
But I still can’t help but want that feeling of being loved by someone who is supposed to love you. And no matter how often I tell myself this is all fake, that need is still there. Whispering for me to let my guard down.
I only wish I had that love before this all happened. Maybe I wouldn’t be in this situation.