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Mom stares at the night sky, searching for something. “I often wondered what would have happened if I stayed and did as Daddy asked or if I had agreed to let them take you or if I let that one couple adopt you when you were ten. ”
My head jerks to glare at her. “They wanted me?”
“Yeah. ” She draws on the cigarette again. “They wanted you, but I didn’t know how to let you go. Plus, I was worried if I made the wrong choice, again, you’d end up in a bad home. I thought the state would protect you. ” Mom rubs her eyes. “I thought I was protecting you. ”
Faint memories emerge of my then social worker asking me if I’d like to stay with that family. At the time, I hadn’t known she meant for good. “I told the state I wanted to stay with them. ”
“I know,” she says. “He told me. Maybe they could have taken you without my consent. I don’t know, but that guy wanted my blessing. How could I be sure you were making the right choice?”
“I knew what I wanted. ” I wanted to be with that family. With the man who called me a dragon. A man who believed I was more life than destruction. My mother ruined my shot at happiness because she couldn’t let go. Because she had to control everything, even from prison.
Just like my need to control.
As if a lightning bolt ripped out of the sky and struck me, I jump off the stoop. Mom stands, anxious over my sudden movement. “Are you okay?”
I tear my cell phone out of my pocket and text Rachel: don’t do the speech.
Seconds go by, maybe minutes. Nothing in return. “I’ve gotta go. ”
Chapter 68
Rachel
OUR ENTIRE FAMILY SITS AT a large round table. The waiters remove the remains of dinner and replace it with beautifully decorated pieces of cheesecake. Everyone claps as the last eloquent speaker, a doctor who specializes in leukemia, finishes his speech. Mom flashes me a smile as she slides out of her chair so she can introduce me.
I draw in air and release it, a continual action. I try not to obsess over how this is the longest speech I’ve ever given in public or how this is the largest crowd I’ve ever spoken to or how people will stare or how they’ll laugh when they hear my trembling voice.
I try not to think about Isaiah stealing cars or Eric appearing on my doorstep tomorrow morning or how Gavin is antsy and how the news of his gambling addiction will affect our mother. I try to ignore the heat crawling up my neck and the way my stomach cramps. I try no
t to think about vomiting in public.
My hands ball in my lap and from under the table, Ethan grabs them. “Don’t do it. ”
My eyes hold his. “What?”
“This is wrong. You can’t do this to yourself, and I shouldn’t let you. ”
“We’re doing this for Mom,” I whisper, as Mom starts to introduce me by explaining who Colleen was, because let’s face it, my entire life is defined by her oldest daughter.
“But who’s looking out for you?” he asks.
“. . . my youngest daughter, Rachel Young. ”
People applaud at my name. I stand, and Ethan still clutches my hand. We stare at each other as he also straightens. He wraps his arms around me and I allow the embrace.
“I forgot I was supposed to be your best friend,” he says.
I hug him tightly. “So did I. ”
The applause continues and I leave my twin for the podium. Typically this time of year, Mom’s so low, she can barely get out of bed, but this year, it’s different. Her eyes shine as she kisses my cheek and the pride and love radiating from her creates a blanket of guilt over my skin. Who does that pride and love even belong to? It can’t be for me.
On the podium, the speech Mom prepared is laid out—typed and double-spaced. I brush the hair from my face and ignore my shaking hand as I lower the microphone. Silence spreads across the room. Occasionally someone coughs or there is a clink of a fork against china.
I concentrate on the words on the paper, not on the eyes on me. “Colleen was barely a teenager when she discovered she had leukemia. . . ”
My stomach aches and I shift my footing. I sip water and a man clears his throat. The crowd grows uncomfortable. I refocus on the speech and freeze on the next words. . . my sister.
Somewhere deep inside of me, this horrible emptiness folds in like a black hole.
