Relative Strangers Page 4

  In a sudden burst of what I hoped would prove genius, I grabbed my phone and took a picture of the photo. I expanded the photo on my phone screen, which made things a little grainier, but still, I could see them better. There was a stuffed bear. A truck. A trophy of some sort. And a toy train, which, on closer examination, proved to be lettered wood blocks, one for each train car. I could make out an L and a U, and then there was something too blurry to make out, and then an E. I played with the sizing of the photo on my phone, looking for the sweet spot between big enough and clear enough. Slightly smaller, the letter looked to be a K. L-U-K-E.

  Luke. I froze. Luke?

  It only took a moment to realize why the name rang a bell: my scarf. I’d always assumed Luke Margolis was the designer. But — what if he wasn’t? What if it was this boy’s name? But why would someone sew his name into the scarf? And then give it to me?

  I scrambled for my laptop and logged in. I typed Luke Margolis designer into a browser window.

  Nothing. Not one thing.

  I deleted “designer” and suddenly there were scores of hits. My heart pounded as I hovered over the trackpad, ready to click one of them. But suddenly I was terrified. I might be one motion away from finding the boy who at one time was my brother, the family that had, for a time, been mine. Was I ready for that?

  I pulled out my phone and messaged Gab and Leila: SOS. Can we get together tomorrow? I have a situation.

  I sat on my bed, wringing my hands. Tomorrow was a long time away. Maybe I should just do this on my own. But if I found possible matches, what then? What if I found e-mail addresses? Would I just message every Luke Margolis with UM, DID YOU ONCE HAVE A SORT-OF SISTER NAMED JULES? IF SO, ANY INTEREST IN MEETING HER? NO PRESSURE OR ANYTHING. IT’S NOT LIKE SHE WILL PERISH OF COMPLETE HEARTBREAK IF YOU DON’T, NOPE.

  My stomach tightened at the thought of the stupid impulsive things I might do. I closed my laptop, and at the same moment, Leila messaged: Are you okay?

  I wrote, Yes. Just a thing I want to tell you guys about. Are you both free tomorrow?

  She replied, Yes, tomorrow is fine. Come at lunchtime? My mom made your favorite — that butternut squash lasagna.

  I felt that warm but sharp-edged sensation — envy laced with jealousy. They were so lucky with their families, Gab and Leila. Did they even know?

  I wrote back to Leila: SOLD. See you then.

  I looked back to the pile of pictures, flipping until I found the one with the little boy in it. We were facing a piano, sheet music laid out above the keyboard. Did he play? Did his mother? His father?

  His father . . . Was there a man who was like a dad to me? Who carried me around and played with me and took care of me? For five hundred and some days? The idea of a father was incomprehensible; “fatherless” had always been a primary aspect of my identity. But then I thought of the guy in my mother’s photos, the one who visited her in the hospital and at least a few times after that. The one who wasn’t in any of the post – foster family photos. My mother didn’t say what happened to him, and I had gotten too tangled up wanting to know about that lost year and a half to press her about it.

  I churned with outrage that I didn’t know any of this. She should have told me.

  I closed my laptop. I would start my search tomorrow, with my friends by my side. They would understand what my mother apparently didn’t: I had a right to find the people who had met my every need when my own mother hadn’t. I had a right to know my own fucking history.

  Walking into Leila’s house was like walking into a House Beautiful photo shoot. Fresh flowers, designer furniture, and a total dearth of taped-together vinyl crap. The sunroom, annex to the glorious kitchen, featured walls of windows, a cozy banquette, and plush stuffed chairs strewn with soft throw blankets. It wasn’t a prewar home (it had been custom built by the Hathaways), but apart from that, it was hard to find fault.

  “Back around three or four,” Leila’s mom said, kissing Leila. She was as beautiful as her daughter, despite the absence of genetic connection — lithe and elegant and sweet. In her early fifties, she looked easily ten years younger. “Garrett’s already down for his nap. Bye, girls!” she called to Gab and me.

  Dr. Hathaway put some money down on the table. “Pizza money, in case you’re still hungry after you’ve eaten us out of house and home. Gotta keep those tapeworms thriving.” He winked at us. I glanced at the cash on the table, thinking how many hours of work a few twenties represented for me and how they were nothing to the Hathaways, and the Wassermans, too. I cringed at myself for the money envy on top of the family envy, but apparently my coveting knew no bounds. When Leila’s dad gave her a kiss on the temple, I wanted to crawl under the kitchen island with the copper-bottomed pots and fancy appliances and cry.

  We sat in the banquette, a celery-green glass vase of calla lilies in the center of the table. Leila had already heated up the lasagna, and it was mind-numbingly delicious: layers of pasta filled with oozing cheeses, caramelized onions, creamy butternut squash, and fresh herbs. I daydreamed of someday traveling to Italy, where I could eat things like this with beautiful views of hilly olive groves or sunlit vineyards and a bottomless decanter of local wine and people who loved food as much as I did.

  As we ate, I told them about my confrontation with my mother and showed them the photos. By the time I revealed my mother’s confession, they were both staring at me, not even chewing.

  “You were in foster care?” Leila stared at the photos from the DCF envelope. “I can’t believe it.”

  I couldn’t really believe it either. On some level, being an orphan must be part of Leila’s identity, as well-adjusted as she seemed. I was just a regular boring person with nothing interesting about me at all. How could I suddenly be a former foster kid?

  Gab leaned over Leila’s shoulder and looked at the pictures. “God, you were cute. You look good, Jules. I mean, you look happy and okay.”

  “They must have taken good care of me,” I said, my chest tightening with feeling. How lucky I was. Given everything.

  “Do you think you’ll . . .” Gab hesitated, glancing at Leila, and I knew she was worrying about how this conversation might affect her. “Do you think you’ll look for them? Maybe there’s something in the DCF paperwork that could lead you to them.”

  I helped myself to a sliver more lasagna. “I can’t even imagine the fallout if I told my mom I was going to do that.” Although, what was she going to do? Ground me? I was eighteen and leaving for college in a handful of months. I hadn’t experimented enough with flouting authority to know the likely outcomes.

  “If I had a way to know something,” Leila said slowly, “I wouldn’t hesitate.”

  I lifted my eyes to meet hers.

  She shrugged. “I’ll never know anything. I was left there, with no information about where I came from. I didn’t even have a name. I don’t even know my real birthday.”

  “Oh my God.” I felt helpless — and incredibly selfish. “So,” I said, wringing my hands in my lap, “your birthday . . .”

  “It’s an estimate,” Leila said. “It’s probably accurate within a few weeks.”

  I considered the idea of such a simple thing — one’s birthday — being forever unknowable. My own story suddenly felt much smaller. “How old were you when . . .” I couldn’t finish the sentence.

  “A few months old,” Leila said.

  Here I’d been reveling in my connection to Leila, and her reality was so much worse than mine. “I’m so sorry,” I finally said. I wanted to hug her, but she was already leaning toward Gab, who reached out an arm, an anxious expression on her face.

  They were a proton and a neutron in the center of an atom, and I was the electron that orbited them. It was always like this. So how did it keep hurting?

  My eyes met Gab’s, and to my surprise hers were damp. She was not normally one to cry, but the depth of her feeling for Leila was an exception. Emotions swirled in me: sadness, jealousy, love. So much love.
I loved them more than anything. Even if I had to love them like an electron. I did. I just did.

  “Seriously, though, Jules,” Gab said, nudging me under the table with her foot. “Weigh pissing off your mom against never finding out your history.”

  “Did you ask her who that boy was in the pictures?” Leila asked. “The one from the hospital? Maybe he knows something.”

  “She says he was her best friend.”

  “So what happened to him?” Gab asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “He’s not in any of the photos once Mom had me back. Maybe they had a falling-out when she fell off the wagon? I don’t even know his name, so even if he did know what happened to me back then, I have no way of finding him. Also, there’s this.” I got up and went to the foyer to get my scarf, then brought it back to the table.

  “I remember that scarf,” Leila said, reaching for it. “You wore that all through grade school.”

  “And junior high,” I said. “But there is a tag on it that I’d always assumed was the name of the designer.”

  Leila found the tag at the end of the scarf. “Luke Margolis?” Her brow furrowed. “Never heard of him.”

  “Right. And I couldn’t find anything online. But then there’s this.” I picked up my phone and showed them the photo with the toy train spelling out L-U-K-E.

  Gab stared at the photo, then at me. “Did you google him?”

  “I started to, but then I panicked. I wanted to do it with you guys.”

  Gab picked up her phone and started typing.

  “Wait!” My heart rate doubled just thinking about what she might find. “Hang on.”

  “Slow down, Gab, jeez,” Leila said. She scooted closer to me and put an arm around my shoulders. “What are you afraid of?”

  I took a breath. “I don’t know what I’ll do about whatever I find. Should I have a plan?”

  “There are too many possibilities here to see around all the corners,” Gab objected. “Let’s just find the results and we’ll go from there. We’re right here, Jules. You won’t have to figure it out alone.” When I nodded, she told Leila to get her laptop so we could all look.

  We sat at the table together. As Leila typed in “Luke Margolis,” I held my hands up in front of me, watching them shake. “Is he a pedophile?” I asked. “A serial killer?” I craned my head to look out the window and avoid watching the screen, listening to her fingers clicking away. I heard Gab murmur, “there,” and out of the corner of my eye I could see her pointing at the screen.

  “Ohhh,” Leila said softly. “Do you think?”

  “Jules,” Gab said. “How old do you think he is?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Judging from the picture, I would guess he was around six when I was one? Or maybe just tall for his age? All I have to go on are limbs and pajamas, basically.”

  “Well, there is a Luke Margolis who is a senior at Lawrence University. He’s a student of the conservatory. A pianist.”

  “What?” I clutched my heart, still not turning around. Lawrence was in Wisconsin. “We were sitting at a piano in the other picture. The one with his face blocked out.” This suddenly seemed entirely possible. This could really be him.

  “Jules, it says he’s from Milwaukee.”

  “Oh my God.” I was shaking all over now.

  “We should probably warn you he’s hot,” Gab said.

  “He’s hot?” I squeaked. “You mean, like, Jason Godfrey hot? Or . . .”

  “Just look, Jules,” Leila said. I felt her hand on my back.

  I turned slowly to the screen.

  It was a portrait shot — head and shoulders — and Gab was right. He was objectively very, very cute. He had dark blond hair, long enough to reveal it had a loose curl but short enough not to be a mop. His eyes were my very favorite color — hazel — and they were the exact hazel I loved best: river green, speckled with brown. I was jarred with the thought that maybe they were my favorite color eyes because they were his — because somewhere in the recesses of my memory, I knew them. He wore a soft-looking charcoal sweater with a bright white shirt underneath. And although he was only smiling slightly, his expression was very warm, very approachable.

  “Jules?” Leila’s voice was almost a whisper. “You don’t remember him, do you?”

  “She was too young,” Gab said. “Not even two.”

  “Sometimes people remember things from earlier than that,” Leila said.

  “That’s pretty rare,” Gab said. She reached out and turned the computer toward her. “He must be really good, Jules. It says here that he just won second prize in something called the MTNA Division Young Artist Competition. He also was a finalist in the Schubert Club competition, and he has a whole bunch of honorable mentions. Jesus. He seems pretty epic.”

  “Wow,” Leila whispered.

  Gab pecked away at the keyboard. Suddenly, she gasped.

  “What?” I said. “What is it?” I leaned over to see the screen.

  It was Luke’s Facebook page.

  “Jules,” Gab said softly. “You could message him right now.”

  “What?” I stood up. “No!”

  Gab laughed. “Why not? Oh my God, just do it.”

  “Gab.” Leila gave her a warning look. “Stop it. Don’t rush her.”

  I expected Gab to have some snippy comeback, but she surprised me by nodding and looking abashed. “No, you’re right. Sorry, Jules.”

  Leila put her hand on my shoulder. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. Maybe you should sleep on it.”

  “I want to talk to him,” I said. “I just — I didn’t know it would be this easy to find him. What would I even say?”

  “Well,” Gab said, glancing at his page. “You could just say, ‘Hey, did you happen to have a foster child in your family sixteen years ago?’ And then you aren’t really saying very much, just maybe opening a dialogue?”

  I wrung my hands. “But what if he doesn’t write back?” The thought was devastating but quickly followed by a flash of annoyance at myself. Was I going to give up on finding out about my past out of fear of rejection? I needed to stop being such a fucking sissy.

  I sat at the table and gestured for Gab to pass me the computer. I logged in to my account and took a deep breath. Hi, I’m wondering if you are the Luke Margolis who had a foster sister sixteen, seventeen years ago? If so, I would love to hear from you.

  “Is that okay?” I turned the screen to face them.

  “Perfect,” Gab said. Leila nodded.

  I hesitated for a moment, my finger hovering over the keyboard. “Is my profile photo okay?” It wasn’t the worst picture, but I was laughing. I looked kind of silly.

  Gab rolled her eyes. “Oh my God, he’s not going to care. You were his sister.”

  “I love that picture of you,” Leila said. “And not just because I took it.”

  I smiled. “Okay.” I took a deep breath, then clicked Send. A rush of adrenaline coursed through me. “Close it,” I said to Leila. “Please. I can’t just wait and watch. I’ll look later. In fact, I should get home. I have to work soon.”

  “I’ll give you a ride,” Gab said.

  Gab drove me home and offered to keep me company for a while, knowing how anxious I was. Inside, I found a note from my mom that said simply “Harbach’s.” She should have worked at that place instead of the community college’s library. She’d probably break even if they had an employee discount on art supplies.

  In my room, Gab busied herself on her phone while I opened my laptop, then tried to avoid looking at it. I let my gaze wander around my bedroom, and it occurred to me that I didn’t even really see my room anymore. The walls were the same purple we’d painted it when I was little, only a little muted and faded now, and dinged and scraped in places. I still had the crappy white dresser of my youth, too, with peeling stickers all over it and drawers that squealed their objections at being disturbed. My bedspread was once white but now not quite, and bleaching wa
s no match for some of the stains I’d managed to inflict on it over the years. Each thing my eyes lighted upon left me in a deeper funk than the last. I thought about Leila’s beautiful house. Her bedroom was a dream. And then I felt like shit, because she didn’t even know her birthday, and she’d never know where she came from. I might never know who my dad was, but at least I knew my mother. And when I was born.

  “How is Leila so well-adjusted?” I asked Gab.

  “I don’t know — great parenting and probably some luck. Although . . .” She trailed off coyly.

  I glanced at her. “What?”

  She grinned. “She did suck her thumb until she was eight.”

  “What? Really?”

  “Well, not when people were looking.”

  People. Gab wasn’t people. I was.

  “Don’t tell her I told you.”

  “No, I won’t.” I tried to smile, but I couldn’t. For one thing, it was another in the string of endless reminders of the private things they shared. For another, it was a lot to process about Leila. To me, her adoption was always a simple fact, a story with a happy ending. But I realized that it didn’t have an ending. I hadn’t thought about the phantom pains it must have left her with. Things that never could be fixed, things she would never know . . . “I feel bad,” I said. “I didn’t know about any of that.”

  Gab shrugged. “It’s not your fault you don’t know, if she didn’t tell you.”

  “Well, I still feel bad.” And it didn’t make me feel better to know that Gab did know all those things.

  “Come on, cheer up. Want to see something funny?” Gab got up and grabbed my computer from the desk. She settled back on my bed, and I scooted next to her as she opened a browser page and typed. Then she grinned and turned the laptop to face me.

  It was a photo gallery of men in kilts. With nothing underneath. Exposing the, um, goods.

  I stared, mesmerized by all those man-parts, by the vast array of shapes and colors and configurations. One picture — a good-looking strawberry blond with one leg propped up on a bench (not exactly subtle) — particularly fascinated me. I knew from personal experience that this kilt-wearer was uncircumcised. In an unfortunate careless move last summer, I walked into my mom’s studio without knocking when, as it turned out, she had a model in there, which is how I learned that an uncircumcised penis looks like a cross between a yam and an anteater.