Page 55 of Middlegame

It was a silly idea, stolen from a hundred movies: pry up a board in the closet floor, sand the nails so it won’t completely latch down again, and use the space between the floor and the downstairs ceiling as a secret compartment. Maybe it worked because it was so silly, because no one could believe a kid as smart as he was would try something so elementary. Whatever the reason, when they renovated the room, they didn’t find his treasures.

“Roger!” The voice belongs to his father this time, louder, more strident. “Come help your mother set the table!”

“Coming!” he calls. The mysteries of childhood will be there later, ready to be explored at his leisure. Dusting his hands against his legs, Roger walks to the door, and out.

Dinner is delicious. That’s no surprise; Melinda Middleton has always been an excellent cook, and having her boy home for Thanksgiving has motivated her to even greater heights than normal. The turkey is perfect. The pie is better. By the time the last dish is cleared away, Roger feels like he’s run a marathon of calories. He could sleep for a year, snuggled under his childhood comforter, surrounded by the walls he grew up in. His father is leaning back in his own chair, sipping a cup of coffee, looking utterly content with the world. His mother is across from him, picking at one last piece of pie.

Maybe it’s the comfort, and maybe it’s the comfort food, but this feels like the perfect time to ask. He takes a breath and says, “I’d like to talk to you about something, if that’s okay.”

“Why wouldn’t it be okay, son?” asks his father. There’s gray in his hair that wasn’t there when Roger went away for college, marching forward every day, slowly conquering the territory from scalp downward. (At least he still has his hair is the automatic thought, followed by the dull flush of shame; what does it matter if Colin Middleton still has his hair or not? It’s not like Roger has any of his genes. Roger’s future is a mystery.) The sight carries its own brand of dull shock. When did he get so old? When did they both get so old?

Blissfully unaware of the thoughts filling his son’s head, Colin continues, “We’ve always been happy to talk with you.”

“Unless you’ve managed to get some girl pregnant,” says Melinda. “That’s between you and her, and we’re not going to give you any advice beyond ‘think about your future’ and ‘think about her future.’”

“Mom,” says Roger, scandalized. “Do you really think I’d do that?”

“Accidents happen,” says Melinda. “Not to us, of course. You were perfectly planned, every inch of you.”

Relief replaces shock. Roger sits up straighter in his chair, trying to look like the adult he is and not the child he always feels like in this house, where the walls are full of remembered bogeymen and the attic creaks with childhood’s ghosts. “That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about.”

He’d have to be stupid to miss the glance that passes between his parents. It’s quick, but it’s so laden with dread and dismay that it falls into the convivial atmosphere of a family Thanksgiving like a rock into a quiet pond.

His mother recovers first. “What do you mean, dear?” she asks, and her voice is honey and sugar and dread. He analyzes her words—he can’t help himself—and finds them packed with fear. Even the cadence is off, tension turning a question he’s heard a thousand times before into a tripwire primed to catch him off-balance.

They’re worried I want to make contact with my birth parents, he thinks, and it’s a reasonable explanation for an unreasonable response: it works, it fits the facts without distorting them. It’s the explanation that leaves his parents in the right, no matter what comes next, because what adoptive parent wouldn’t worry about their child someday finding someone to love more? He could try to explain that they’re irreplaceable, that they were so perfect for him that he might as well have chosen them—his bookstore-owning father, his stay-at-home, intellectually flexible mother—but for once, he doesn’t feel like he has the words. The only way out is onward.

“We’ve never talked about my adoption,” he says. “I’ve always known I was adopted, and I know my birth mother didn’t want any contact with me after the adoption was finished. I’ve seen the paperwork. Before we go any further, I want to say I love you—both of you—very much, and you’re the only parents I’ll ever want or need. I’m not looking to find the woman who gave me up. Whether that was her mistake or her looking out for me, it gave me the best family anybody’s ever had, and I’m grateful, but I’m not indebted to her.”

His parents relax a little, his mother’s hands unclenching until the color begins flooding back, his father’s shoulders slumping.

“There’s this girl.”

The tension returns. It’s an instant, unmistakable thing: his parents may as well have been replaced by statues that look exactly like them. They barely even seem to be breathing.

“Her name’s Dodger, and she was adopted the same day I was. Born the same day I was, in the same state. She got her name from her birth parents. Keeping it was a condition of her adoption.” Roger looks between them, waiting for them to say something, to do something, to show, in some small way, that they’re still present. “She’s nice. I think you’d like her, if you met her.”

“Are you . . . dating this girl?” his mother asks, in a strangled voice. She looks almost like she’s going to throw up, like she can’t stomach the idea of him and Dodger together.

Something about that is wrong. Something about that is screaming for him to be careful. He forces his way on, saying, “No, Mom, jeez, no. Dodger’s not my type. I mean, she’s a girl, and she’s smart, and she has boobs, so I guess technically she is my type, but she’s not, because I think she’s my sister. I mean, functionally, I know she’s my sister, but I’m talking about biologically. When you adopted me, did the agency say anything about a second child? Was I a twin?”

“Go to your room,” says his father, in a soft voice.

“What?” Roger turns to look at him quizzically. “Dad, I don’t—”

“Go to your room,” his father repeats, and this time, the stresses on his words are impossible to ignore. Colin Middleton is terrified. More than that: there’s a layer of resignation to his terror, like this is the moment he’s been waiting for since the day they brought Roger home. This was, somehow, the inevitable outcome.

Roger rises slowly, waiting for his mother to say something, waiting for one of them to start making sense. Neither of them moves. He pushes back his chair, steps away from the table, and climbs the stairs, all while waiting for them to say something.

Neither of them speaks.

The stairs haven’t seemed this long since he was a child, being sent to his room for one infraction of the rules or another. This time, he knows, there won’t be a book conveniently hidden under his pillow; his mother won’t be coming by with cocoa or chocolate milk to tell him that all boys are rambunctious sometimes, they understand, they always understand, but if he could just try to be a little quieter, they would appreciate it so, so much. A little neater. A little tidier. Read your book, Roger; finish your homework.

This is the first time it’s occurred to him that perhaps their reactions to his childhood misbehavior were unusual. Did other kids get antique dictionaries and glossaries of dead languages from their fathers when they were bad? Did they find themselves rewarded with the thing they loved most when they broke a plate or said a swear word? He always assumed they did, and so he never talked to anyone else about it. Maybe he should have.

Something is very wrong. Something that started with the silence his parents made between them when he mentioned his adoption.

Roger closes his bedroom door, walks to the bed, and sits. He’ll explore the treasure trove in his closet later; right now, he needs reassurance that he didn’t somehow violate some essential agreement between adopted child and adoptive parents. Closing his eyes, he reaches into the dark behind them, and says, almost meekly, “Dodge? You there?”