Page 24 of Goodbye Days

“Your dad said y’all just moved here. I remember Eli mentioning that.”

“Yep, from Jackson, Tennessee. Few months ago.”

“Do you like Nashville?”

“You kidding? There’s music everywhere. I belong here.”

“So Bobbie’s Dairy Dip is an ice cream place. We used to get peanut butter and banana milkshakes there.”

“ ‘We’ meaning you and Eli, Mars, and Blake?”

“Yeah. It was kind of a tradition.”

“Both the Southerner and the Filipino in me dig the sound of peanut butter and banana milkshakes.”

I start the car and pull away. My mouth outruns my brain. “So I didn’t realize—”

“What?”

Shit. “You’re adopted.”

She cocks her head quizzically. “Wait…what?”

“Uh.”

She turns in her seat. “What—what are you saying?” she asks softly.

I’m slack-jawed.

“My whole life is a lie,” she whispers, her face solemn. “My obviously white dad and mom are not my real parents?”

I’m still speechless.

She laughs. A clean, bright, and silver sound, like wind chimes. “Come on, dude,” she says. “Does ‘Jesmyn Holder’ sound like a Filipino name to you?”

I can’t help but join her laughing. “I’m not an expert in what’s a Filipino name and what isn’t.”

“Holder. As in the English word for one who holds something.”

“All right. Well.”

“Well.”

“Were your ancestors way into holding stuff or what?”

“I guess? Like…swords or geese or horseshoes or whatever old-timey people were into holding.”

“Whatever it was, they were into holding it enough that that’s what everyone thought they should be named.”

We pull up to Bobbie’s. “So what’s your deal, ancestry-wise?” she asks, not moving to unbuckle her seat belt.

“My dad is Irish—like literally from Ireland—my mom is some mix of German and Welsh or something.”

“Really? Your hair and eyes look too dark to be Irish.”

“My dad says we’re called ‘Black Irish.’ ”

“Does your dad have a cool accent?”