Chapter 9 #4
“It was all his fault. He shouldn’t have let it happen.
I don’t know what that means, either. Precious, listen to me.
He was heartbroken, not thinking right. Okay?
If something happened to your mother, I’d blame myself, too, even if there was nothing I could do to prevent it.
That’s just how it feels when you love someone so much. ”
“But he didn’t love me?”
“He loved you so much, he wouldn’t let you be in danger, too.
I don’t know what the danger was or if it was all in his mind, but he begged me to keep you safe and get you to the nearest police station.
” Ali seized her daughter’s shoulder as she turned away.
“He kissed his fingers and pressed them to your head. I could tell it was killing him to leave, but he made himself do it. He ran, up the stairs and straight out of the station.”
Sophie nodded, silent. Anger and sorrow were dulling her curiosity. What had her parents done? Had they simply kept her?
“This is where Darrell helped. He was the nearest officer, just finishing his shift. When he heard what happened, he got a search set up for your birth father. No one found a trace of him. They even ran the footage from the security cameras. As soon as he stepped out from the underhang of the station, he literally disappeared from the tape. He must have been swallowed up in a crowd.”
Or he died in the sunlight. What happens to vampires in the sun? Do they burst into flame? Melt like the Wicked Witch? Again, gotta call Jesse.
“What happened to me while they were searching?”
Her mother explained, “You should have been taken to a hospital and then foster care.”
“But?”
“We didn’t want to let you go. We didn’t know what would happen to you, or if they’d even consider us for foster parents if we went through all the red tape, so.
.. Uncle Darrell and Aunt Izzy helped cut it,” her father couldn’t help but smile.
“She was still a social worker back then, still getting her psych degree. Uncle Darrell told the sergeant in charge that your birth father gave you into our care and we had contacted the police, which was true. Aunt Izzy had a friend who worked for Youth and Family. She came over and did the emergency home study. My mother and Tatik raced around the city— and you know what terrible drivers both of them were— buying everything your mother told them to get, formula, diapers, a crib, blankets... The foster care system was and probably still is a hot mess. Infants need someone who can care for them full-time. Newborns who might have medical issues were hard to place.”
“So you got approved because no one else wanted to bother with me?” Sophie couldn’t keep the edge of bitterness from her voice.
“No, Baby Girl. We got you because we moved heaven, earth, and the bureaucratic jackasses running this city. We got you because we wanted you and we fought for you. We got you because our whole family prayed for you, across oceans and state lines. Not a person we knew didn’t stop and pray for you.
” Her father’s eyes glittered with emotion.
“Everyone who heard was in shock, but no one doubted you were meant for us. They’d been praying.
You were a miracle. You are a miracle. Look at you.
You get more miraculous each year.” His thick dark fingertips pressed her then milky ones, mechanic’s calluses to cellist’s calluses.
“There’s a little more to tell. You know how it ended. Should we stop?”
“What else?” Sophie let her fingers lace through his for a moment, smiling crookedly.
“Uncle Darrell got promoted to sergeant after helping with your case. He spent hours and hours of overtime investigating every possible lead and source to make sure you weren’t kidnapped or missing and trying to find your biological family.
No leads. We were able to adopt you and whether you believe it or not, I think that’s what your birth father wanted.
Maybe not us, but he wanted us to take you to the police station so you’d get placed with a good family.
He knew he wasn’t okay, honey. He might have hurt you.
He might have hurt himself. If he hurt himself while he had you, out alone somewhere— I don’t wanna think about that. ”
Her mother jumped in, voice strained and trembling with emotion, “Sophie, you were put there for a reason, I believe that. Everything fell into place faster than we could have imagined. Within two months, you were legally our baby, our daughter. A fast-tracked home study and private legal adoption? In two months? You are a miracle in so many ways. You see, Sophie? God put you there, God put us there.”
Sophie felt some of the anger replaced by peace. There was no doubting the sincerity of her parents’ words. She sat silent, allowing herself to be enfolded by two sets of arms.
“Maybe he was very ill. Close to death. It happens sometimes, Sophie, even in this modern world. It happens,” her father rested his heavy jaw on her head. She felt wet drops dotting her hair.
“Don’t cry, Daddy.”
“Can’t help it. If something happened to your mother, there is no way on earth I’d let someone else have you. But if I were dying, too...” the low rumble choked off. “Poor man.”
“If he had no other family— immigrants, sometimes even those who are born here,” her mother’s voice was a mere whisper.
Sophie realized afresh what strong, empathetic parents she had. They knew a man for only moments and gave him the noblest possible backstory. With his pallor and the news that his wife had died in childbirth, perhaps they had made connections that weren’t there.
I’ll never know for sure.
Jesse’s words suddenly whispered in her mind. Does everything have a scientific explanation? What about— love? “I don’t need more of an explanation right now,” Sophie pulled back and lifted her head. Her smile was tearstained but firmly in place. “I still have the best parents in the universe.”
For some reason, her mother burst into convulsive sobs at that. Sophie decided the questions were done for the day.
“DADDY?” SOPHIE WAS helping her father haul Christmas decorations up from the storage unit in the basement.
“Can you get the door?”
“Got it.” Sophie squeezed past him and the box holding the artificial tree to swing open the door of their apartment.
“Daddy? In Nigerian culture... do they have things like vampires?”
He shrugged. “I think every culture does. Yeah, there are old stories about the witch-women who steal the blood of other wives and children. There are stories about the obayifo, who can live among humans without them knowing it. Why?”
“Just wondering.”
“That doesn’t sound like your ‘just wondering’ voice.”
“Um. It’s just... I think some things about me that defy logic. Right?”
“Don’t mean you leap to crazy.”
“Isn’t everything crazy until you prove it?” Sophie countered. “The world was flat and the sun moved around the Earth, right up until someone proved they didn’t.”
“Oh, Lord. Shouldn’t have sent you to that fancy college.”
“Daddy, this college is so not fancy. You’re going to come and see me play, right?” She ducked her head suddenly, intently staring at the Baby’s First Christmas ornament she’d just unpacked. “I’m trying out for Spring Soloist. It’s a big deal, for a tiny college.”
Sophie turned when her father remained silent. He’d sat down on the arm of the couch, face working. “Dad! What’s wrong? Does your arm hurt? Is there a pain in your jaw?”
“You’ve never... all these years you wanted to sit in the back. Soloist? On stage? Letting everyone hear how good you are?”
Sophie smiled and nodded. She swallowed something like anxiety that pushed into her throat. “Let ‘em stare. Of course, they may have to dim the spotlight. I wouldn’t want to blind the audience.”
With a soft thump, she was enfolded in her father’s arms. “I’m so proud of you, Sophie.”
She nodded into his shoulder a few times, letting the lump in her throat dissipate. “I think I’m proud of myself, too.”
“MOM? ARE THERE THINGS like vampires in Armenian culture?”
Her mother nodded firmly. “Absolutely, especially in the Ararat. The dakhanavar. They protect the mountain and the little villages in the valley from intruders, but if you are a stranger, they will bite your feet and suck out your blood. Tatik’s great-uncles always put garlic in their boots when they left the valley. ”
Sophie’s mind couldn’t quite work out what her mother had just said. “You believe in them?”
“Of course! How else do you think Tatik and her sisters escaped to the refugee camp when they were small?”
“Um... a U.N. peacekeeping delegation?”
“There was no U.N. in her tiny village, sweetie. No, I am sure there were many good people who helped, but I know that it took a miracle for our family to escape not once, but twice. The dakhanavar.”
“Wh-what do they look like?”
“Like humans with the mouths of beasts. That’s a rumor. I’ve never seen one, they like the dark and I was only ten when we... when we left.”
Sophie didn’t pry further. Her mother hadn’t come straight to America.
There were years spent moving from relative’s house to friend’s house, refugee camp to resettlement camp before they were granted asylum in America as victims of genocide.
“I’m sorry, Mom. I didn’t mean to bring it up.
It’s just... most people don’t believe in monsters like vampires. ”
“I don’t believe in most monsters. Only useful ones,” her mother replied, savagely kneading the orange-scented dough that would become Christmas-morning’s breakfast buns.
“If you believe in a heaven, you believe in a hell, if you believe in an angel, you believe in a demon. They say some angels left heaven to spite the Lord, but maybe some left for other reasons. The dakhanavar are monsters and they kill to live. They also protect. Why are you staring?”
“Because most adult people don’t believe in monsters! Do you believe in ghosts?”
“Only the holy one,” her mother winked, studding the doubt with golden raisins.
“But- but what about Count Dracula and—”
“Sophie. I’ve never seen God. But I know He exists.
I know other things exist, too, things I don’t know.
I know science and ‘proof’ are only parts of a whole.
” Her mother dusted floury hands on her festive apron and surveyed her precious child.
“You taught me that. To believe in miracles and to accept them.”
For the second time in as many months, her world flipped on its head.
Whatever she was... maybe it wasn’t a curse.
It was a miracle. Whatever Jesse had didn’t have to make him something scary and feared, at least not to a few important people.
“How do they think the dakhanavar came to be if they’re semi-animal, semi-human? ”
“Oh, who knows? Maybe I’m a foolish woman, still clinging to the stories from little villages that the rest of the world would call ‘backward.’” Something sad drifted across her face.
“There are no little villages like mine anymore. Not over here. Miracles are hard to find in the big places. So crowded.”
Sophie put her arm around her mother’s waist and rested her head on her soft, cushiony shoulder. “Antonia is a small place. So is Pine Ridge. I think... I think there are still places of miracles, Mom.”
“You are happy and you are loved, that’s all the miracle I need. I cannot wait to meet this boy who helped you become the woman you are meant to be. My fearless one.”
“How can you say fearless?” Sophie snuck a raisin before backing away.
“You didn’t give up. That’s a lot of what bravery is, Sers. Not giving up.”