Chapter Four Mary #2
“Um . . . I lived in Homestead with a series of foster families,” she said.
“Six,” I offered, remembering our conversation in the car.
She gave a small nod of acknowledgment. “Right. Six.”
“Six?” Dad repeated, startled. “Six?”
Sam’s shoulder lifted slightly. “A couple of those were when I was a baby. I don’t remember much about the early ones.”
“So how old were you when you were adopted?” my mother asked.
I felt Sam go still beside me.
“I wasn’t,” she said simply. “Adopted, I mean. I stayed with different foster families, but a permanent placement never really happened. When I was around fourteen, I was moved into group homes and different programs. One of them was this wilderness camp for teens.” She added, “Classes were indoors, but the rest of the time we lived in tents. Carried our own water and firewood. That sort of thing.”
Mom inhaled sharply. “Oh, my goodness. That sounds absolutely horrible!”
Sam shook her head. “It wasn’t all bad. Some parts were rough, sure, but . . . I liked being outside. You learn to make the best of whatever situation you’re in.”
Her voice wasn’t defensive—just matter of fact. A simple telling of what was.
“So that was my life for a while,” she finished. “Until I aged out.”
“Aged out?” I echoed, unfamiliar with the term.
She nodded and glanced my way. “Yeah. You’re on your own once you turn eighteen.”
“But what if you don’t have money to go to college or for an apartment or whatever? What do you do then?”
“Then I guess you’re outa luck,” she replied.
“I was lucky, though. I really enjoyed the whole wilderness thing, and turns out I’m pretty good at it too.
That’s how I was able to score a scholarship as an outdoor education major there at the college.
I’m hoping to get a job as a tour guide, maybe even own my own company someday. ”
“Oh. My. God!” I yelped loud enough to startle all three of them. “I love camping too! Right, Dad? Don’t I love camping?” I turned to my father so he could verify my love of the outdoors.
“Uh, yeah, you sure do,” he answered in a tone that was much less enthusiastic than my own.
“Isn’t that amazing?” I asked my parents. “We both love the outdoors! And we’re both allergic to peanuts. And can you believe we both hate strawberries? Oh, and—”
Dad held up his hands to stop me. “Mary, slow down, honey. A lot of people love the outdoors and are allergic to peanuts.”
“‘Slow down’? Are you kidding? I think we should be calling the newspapers! This is an amazing story. I mean, what are the odds of us reconnecting at some random liberal arts college in Nowhere, Florida? And how did we come to be separated in the first place? Maybe I was ripped from my mother’s arms, or there was a mix-up—”
“Mary!” Mom cut me off sharply.
“What? What’s wrong?” I demanded. “This is amazing! We should be celebrating, cracking open a bottle of champagne . . .”
“Mary, they’re not happy,” Sam muttered from next to me.
When I glanced over, she was staring at the floor. I elbowed her gently.
“What? No, don’t be silly,” I insisted, still grinning.
But when I looked back up at my parents, I saw it then too.
“Oh my God. She’s right. You’re not happy . . .” I murmured.
It was more than my eighteen-year-old brain could process. How could they not be as thrilled by all this as I was?
“Samantha, we’re going to step outside onto the patio to have a word with Mary. Would you please excuse us for just a moment?” Mom asked, forcing a polite smile.
By then my own expression had faded into a deep, confused frown. I shook my head.
“No, no. Anything you have to say to me, you can say in front of her.”
“No, it’s okay,” Sam assured me, patting my leg.
My parents got to their feet and looked at me expectantly. Finally Mom nodded in the direction of the backyard. “Mary?”
Seething, I got up and followed them until we were outside, French doors shut firmly behind us.
“Well, that was a little rude, don’t you think?” I demanded.
“Rude was springing this on us,” Mom spit back. “Mary Louise Langston, what were you thinking?”
I threw up my hands. “I was thinking, ‘Oh my God! I have a twin sister I didn’t even know existed! My parents are going to be as thrilled as I am!’ That’s what I thought. I guess I was wrong about that.”
“Mary.” Dad stepped closer to put a hand on my shoulder. “Honey, you have to understand we’re as shocked as you are. But we’re just a little . . . I don’t know . . . suspicious?” He looked to my mom, who nodded in agreement with the feeling he chose.
“Suspicious of what? Of Sam?”
“You don’t know she’s your sister. Not for sure. Not without a DNA test,” Mom said by way of justification.
I burst out laughing. “Are you blind? We don’t just resemble each other—we’re identical.
No way someone didn’t know they were separating twins .
. .” My words petered out as a thought occurred to me.
A disturbing thought. “Hey, you wouldn’t—I mean, you didn’t just, you know, pick me, right?
You didn’t just leave her there at the orphanage or whatever, did you? ”
“No,” my mother replied firmly for both of them. “We only ever saw you, Mary. And it wasn’t an orphanage. You know this story—you came from a small private adoption agency. And believe me, after so many miscarriages, we would have been thrilled to have two babies. If that had been an option.”
I breathed a silent sigh of relief. At least they hadn’t been the ones to separate us.
“Okay, well, better late than never, right?” I coaxed, deciding righteous indignation was getting me nowhere.
They looked at me like I’d just sprouted another head.
“What do you mean?” Dad asked slowly.
“I mean now we know she exists. So we can all be a family, right? It’s never too late to be a family, right?
Isn’t that what you used to say when you told me the story?
About how Dad and Grandpa Lloyd didn’t speak for years, until I was born?
And then you all made amends? You said those exact words, Dad. ‘It’s never too late to be a family.’”
Their eyes met then, something unspoken passing between them.
“We have only one child,” Mom said in a voice that was softer in volume but harder in tone. Quiet, steely.
I felt my mouth hinge open. “What does that mean?”
“I’m saying that Samantha Kinski is not our daughter, Mary. You are. And while we certainly understand your . . . your curiosity, we are not interested in another child. Not at this point.”
My father, who’d been raking a hand through his hair, stopped short. “Not even a child,” he added. “She’s a grown woman. We can hardly adopt her retroactively.”
“You can adopt an adult,” I informed him, having done a quick search on my phone before we left campus.
“That’s a thing.” When neither replied, I felt my blood pressure rise.
“Don’t you even care that she had a horrific childhood?
Because I do! While I was taking piano lessons and going horseback riding on the beach, she was thirty miles away, fending off sexual predators and looking for her next meal! ”
My mother scoffed, rolling her eyes as she waved a hand dismissively. “Okay, now you’re just being dramatic. I don’t know what she told you, but our foster care system is hardly something out of Dickens. Next thing you’ll be telling us she had to wear rags and scrub floors on her hands and knees.”
The rage that had been simmering in me came to a boil. My father must have seen it in my reddening face because he jumped in, holding his palms up.
“Right. Let’s just stop for a second,” he said. “Marebear, of course we care about what happened to Samantha! Your mom is just trying to say that she’s a stranger. Maybe, with time, we can get to know her a little better. You could even bring her home for Thanksgiving . . .”
That was it for me.
“How can you not see how huge this is?” I demanded loudly.
“You have no idea what it is to spend your entire life wondering who you are—really. Who was my mother, and why did she give me up? Why did she insist on the closed adoption so I couldn’t find her?
And now, out of nowhere, the universe sends me this .
. . this piece of me that I didn’t even know was missing!
I’ve felt more complete in the last eight hours than I have in the last eighteen years.
And if the two of you can’t see that—can’t help me figure this out, then I don’t think I want to be here anymore. ”
“Good idea,” Dad said. “Why don’t you drive back up to campus, and we can talk about this again in a few days when everyone’s calmed down . . .”
He stopped as I shook my head.
“Uh-uh. You don’t want her to be a part of our family? Then I don’t want to be a part of it either,” I informed them less than an instant after the thought formed in my mind.
Mom gasped. “Mary! What are you saying?”
“I’m saying she’s blood. You’re not.”