Chapter 23 Mabel
MABEL
Scrolling through the photos on my laptop makes me feel sleezy.
They didn’t know these pictures were being taken. They didn’t ask for this. It’s a violation of their privacy, and I’m no better than the paparazzi.
These are the thoughts cycling through my head, but I still click from one image to the next. I still stare, unblinkingly, at each one. Analyzing every feature. Every expression. Every detail.
She’s got my eyes.
Or, rather, I have her eyes, I guess. And her heart-shaped face. Her stature. Her hair. Honestly, if I wanted a preview of myself in fifteen years, I could probably just look at these pictures. Genetics are wild, and my sisters are also little carbon copies of me, too.
The older daughter, Calliope, reminds me of Sav when I first met her, right down to the messy hair, ratty old jeans, and dirty skate shoes. A type B ball of unfettered energy. She even has the same glint in her eye. The one that always got Sav and me in so much trouble.
I grin as I zoom in on a picture of her. She’s walking down the street with a backpack hanging open and slung over her shoulder and a smirk on her lips. I bet she’s a handful. I bet we’d get along.
Amelia, the younger of the two, seems more easygoing. The calm to her sister’s chaos. Her backpack is always zipped. Her shoes are always tied and clean. She’s usually holding a book, and she’s always sporting a wide, genuine smile. Always.
They seem so different, so uniquely themselves, and I’m certain that means their mom is a good mom.
Our mom.
Is this how I would have been at their age? Confident and carefree. Secure and loved. It took me a long time to settle into myself. To feel comfortable and safe in my own skin. Sav and I always say that we saved each other. But if I’d been kept, would I have needed saving?
I snap my laptop closed and drop my head back against the wall. I close my eyes and breathe.
Why is this so hard?
Why can’t I just make a decision and stick with it?
Is my hesitancy based on fear or intuition? Maybe both?
If nothing else, this process has revealed something that I’d rather not have known.
Deep down, that insecure little girl is still alive and well.
I thought I’d grown out of it. I thought I’d healed.
But I’m still terrified of people leaving, of being unwanted and alone.
Thirty years and dozens of lives later, yet not much has changed.
What life would I be living now if I’d just been enough from the beginning?
I push my palms into my eyes to stave off the tears, but they come anyway.
Every feeling of inadequacy, of loss, comes crashing down on me until I’m overwhelmed by them. I was just a baby. I was innocent and helpless. I wasn’t enough.
How long did it take before I knew love? Until I was able to hold it firmly in my hands without it being torn from my grip? Right now, it feels like I still can’t. Not really.
My birth mother. My foster families. Ms. Mabel. Kat. In one way or another, they all left. I always end up alone in the end.
Even Sav and the guys haven’t always been stable. I love them. They’re the only true family I’ve ever known, but dynamics are changing. They’re moving forward without me. They’ve got their own families and facets of their lives that don’t include me, and it hurts.
I know I’m always welcome in their homes, in their lives. I know I am, but right now, I don’t feel it. Right now, I feel like the cycle is repeating itself. I feel like I’ll end up alone again. Right now, I feel sad and scared. I feel helpless.
I feel like I’m not enough.
I drop my head between my knees and breathe. Tears drip onto my thighs and down my calves. I press my toes into the floor. Try to remind myself that I’m on solid ground. I’m safe and in control, even if I feel like I’m plummeting.
Between my shaking inhales and exhales, I strain to hear the waves ebbing and flowing on the beach. The sound is carried through my French doors on the evening’s ocean breeze. I try to fill my lungs with that breeze. I try to pretend the salt I taste is from the air and not my tears.
I can’t make my hands stop trembling. I thread them through my hair, push my fingers into my scalp, but still, they quiver against my skin. I swear I can hear my bones and joints rattling as the floor shifts beneath me.
“I’m here,” I tell myself. “I’m sitting still. I’m not spinning out. I’m not abandoned. I’m not alone.”
I am not alone.
I repeat it over and over, but my anxiety is a talented liar, and my body doesn’t recognize the truth through the pain.
I tug at the roots of my hair. I count backward from one hundred. I recite lyrics to Heartless’s very first chart topper. I try to time my breaths with the slow, steady rhythm of the waves. None of it works.
Desperately, I reach for the first calming image I can find and focus on it.
Aurora.
Aurora with her little crocheted tops, wide-legged jeans, and glittery tennis shoes.
Aurora with her orchid and the way she gets so excited talking about plants that she forgets to breathe.
The way she looks at me. Like it’s physically difficult to look away.
Like I’m the most fascinating thing in the room.
Aurora and the way she’s literally bursting at the seams with light and energy.
I’m witnessing her confidence come out little by little.
She’s like a sunrise. A blooming flower.
A brilliant, beautiful, wonderful act of nature.
At the wildlife sanctuary, we got to feed quokkas.
One of them absolutely loved Aurora. I replay her laughter in my mind.
I picture her smile, so big and wide that it transformed her whole face.
Her nose scrunched up. Her hazel eyes sparkled.
Her cheeks flushed with life and color. We took a selfie with that little quokka, and he looked like he was smiling right along with us. I made it the wallpaper on my phone.
Normally, when I start to feel unsteady on my own feet, when my mind starts to play tricks to convince me that the ground is shattering, I find Sav. It’s automatic. My legs carry me to her without thought. Tonight, though, she’s not who I want. She’s not who I need.
Tonight, I let my body lead me through the French doors and onto the terrace.
I let myself find Aurora.
I stand outside her room for a moment, noting the low hum of the television. It’s late. She might be asleep. Maybe I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t—
“Hey. I thought I felt you out here.”
My muscles relax at the sound of her voice. It’s such a relief that more tears break through my lashes. When I tilt my face to hers, her smile fades, and she brings her palms gently to my cheeks.
“What’s wrong? What happened?”
I close my eyes. “I’m just having a moment.”
“What can I do?” Her thumbs caress my cheeks, the touch so grounding and safe that I lean into it. “What can I do, Mabel?”
“I don’t know.”
She goes quiet, but the silence isn’t awkward.
It’s comforting. When she moves her hands to my shoulders and guides me into her room, I let her.
We sit on the edge of her bed. She rubs her hand up and down my back.
She does for me what I did for her. She gives me space to feel, and she feels with me.
And when the spinning slows and the ground stills, I open my eyes and let them find hers.
“I look just like them.”
My whispered words are ragged, my body emotionally exhausted from the overwhelming anxiety. She doesn’t ask who I’m talking about. She doesn’t have to. Instead, she brushes a strand of hair behind my ear and nods.
“An attractive family, then.”
That brings a small smile to my lips before I push forward.
“My lawyer sent me photos. It makes them more real now, you know? It makes everything real, and I feel rushed. I feel all this pressure to decide if I want to meet them or not. I don’t know what to do.
I don’t know what I want to do or what I should do.
It’s just...it just all got so heavy. I couldn’t carry it. ”
“That sounds really daunting,” she says, her eyes holding mine. “It makes sense that the decision would feel heavy, but you don’t have to make it right now. There’s no time limit, right?”
I shake my head. “No, there’s no time limit.”
Just saying the words helps relieve a little more of my anxiety. There’s no rush. I don’t have to make the decision today or tomorrow. I don’t have to do anything until I’m ready.
But what if I’m never ready?
Will they go back to being strangers? To abstract figures in the back of my mind? I don’t know if that’s possible. I can’t unsee their faces. I can’t unlearn their names. I can’t bury it all back up again.
“I thought I was prepared. I wasn’t,” I confess. “I knew she was out there. I thought I was ready, but I didn’t consider all the feelings it would dig up.”
“What kind of feelings?”
I drop my eyes to my hand and spin my ring around on my finger.
“Inadequacy, I guess. I mean, I knew there was a possibility she’d have a family, but I didn’t realize how much it would hurt.”
I pause when my voice cracks. I breathe in and out, in and out, trying and failing to keep another wave of tears at bay. I feel the shift of the Earth beneath me as it threatens to knock me off balance. I fear it will start spinning again. That I will spiral and fall.
But then Aurora puts her hand on my knee, and it all halts.
I release my ring and lace my fingers with hers. I wrap my other hand around her wrist and press two fingers to her pulse point. I feel her heartbeat. I hear it in my head. I imagine my pulse syncing with hers. Then, with tears streaming down my face, I force another rough swallow and continue.