The People We Choose Read online

  “Your dad, Max. My donor is your dad.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  HE follows me up the hill. Sense and Sensibility is tucked under my arm with the letter.

  We don’t acknowledge each other.

  After I dropped the bomb, I asked if we could go somewhere more private—just in case my moms got home sooner than I expected. I’m not sure how long this conversation will take.

  He nodded. No words. He looked too shocked to articulate whatever might be happening in his mind.

  I walk without seeing, grateful my feet know the path so well. When we get to the peak, I sit on a large flat rock, large enough for Max to sit next to me. But he chooses the ground instead, mostly dirt and pebbles with a few blades of sad, scraggly grass, a few feet away from me.

  I lean across the rock, letter in my hand. He makes no motion to take it from me. I let it flutter to the ground next to him.

  We sit without talking for a long stretch, staring out over the valley. I can’t appreciate the view this time. I’m not sure I ever will again.

  “I can read the letter to you if you prefer that,” I say finally, unable to bear the silence any longer. “It was just… easier to put everything into words this way. There’s a lot to say.”

  Another beat, and then—Max picks up the letter. He unfolds it slowly, holding it out at arm’s length as if the words are too toxic to touch.

  And then he reads it. All the way through. Once. Twice.

  “How long have you known?” he says finally, the letter falling to his knees. His eyes are still on the valley, the peaks and slopes of the hills across from us.

  “Not long. I only got your dad’s letter two days ago.”

  “So that’s why you were busy yesterday.”

  “I needed to process. To be sure.”

  “And are you? Sure?”

  I nod for a moment before realizing he won’t see. “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “I called the cryobank. They assured me they don’t make mistakes, that the records are correct. And I—I also talked to your dad. This morning. I had to make sure he was the one who wrote it. I needed to know it wasn’t another Elliot Jackson. He wanted to tell you, but I said it had to be me.”

  “My dad knows? He knew before me?” His voice cracks now, like this is the worst part of it all, the biggest injustice. “You should have told me first.”

  “I needed to be one hundred percent positive. I didn’t want to plant the idea in your head, make you change your mind about me. About us. Not until it was absolutely necessary.”

  “Who else? Who else knew before me?”

  “Ginger.” I sigh. “I told her yesterday. When I was trying to process. And then she told Noah.”

  “Not your moms?”

  “Not yet.”

  He drops his head into his hands, clawing at his hair so hard I wouldn’t be surprised if he leaves clumps behind on this hill. “You don’t look anything like him. How is it possible?”

  “Don’t I, though? I didn’t think so either. Not at first. But if you really look. There’s something there.”

  “I don’t want to believe it, Calliope. I can’t. I just can’t. I mean—how does something like this even happen in real life? The odds are too crazy.”

  “I know. I don’t want to believe it either. But we have to. It’s the truth.”

  His face is still down, covered by his palms, but I don’t need to see tears to know that he’s crying.

  I’ve never seen Max cry before.

  But I suppose it would be strange if he didn’t cry now. I should be crying, too, but I feel too broken for more tears.

  “Everything I wrote in the letter is true. I just… need to learn how to love you without being in love with you. I don’t have all the answers. But I know I still want you in my life.” I almost reach out to put my arm around his shoulders. I stop myself, though. Pin my hands under my thighs. It feels like I should be doing something more than sitting here and staring at him crying, but I can’t. There’s nothing I can do to comfort him.

  “You should have told me yesterday,” he says finally. “As soon as you found out.”

  “I was still hoping I was wrong. That it was all a horrible mix-up. I was trying to protect you. Me. Us.”

  I slide off the edge of the rock and crawl on the ground to be next to him. Max pointedly turns his head farther in the opposite direction.

  “Talk to me, Max. Please.”

  The sun is beating down on me, but I feel cold. So cold.

  “I can’t. I can’t talk to you. Not right now. I am so—” He pushes roughly up from the ground, scattering small pebbles in his wake. I watch them bounce and skid off the top of the hill, start their descent to the valley below. “My heart feels like someone pummeled it with a hammer. I’m so damn sad. But I’m so angry, too. I’m angry at life for putting me in this terrible old house we never should have come to—and I’m angry that you, out of every person on this planet, had to be my neighbor. I’m angry that we fell in love. I’m just… angry. So angry.”

  “I’m angry, too,” I say quietly. But I don’t stand up next to him.

  And I don’t try to follow when he starts back down the path.

  “I can’t believe you didn’t tell us,” Mama says. I don’t think she’s blinked in the twenty minutes since I started talking.

  “Which part?” I ask. “Me not telling you how much I really wanted to know about Frank, and requesting to be in touch after my birthday—or that Frank is actually our next-door neighbor and Max’s dad?”

  “I’m going to say: both. All of it.”

  Mimmy still hasn’t said anything. She’s staring into her nearly empty wineglass, processing.

  I threw open the kitchen door after my walk down the hill, hoping they would both be there. And they were, laughing and sipping wine, nibbling on the rest of Mimmy’s blueberry oat bars. They looked so happy and calm. I hated that I had to ruin it.

  “I have to tell you something.” I practically shouted it. A declaration.

  “Oh Jesus, she’s pregnant,” Mama said, spilling a heavy pour of deep red wine down her—white, unfortunately—Hot Mama Flow T-shirt.

  She was temporarily relieved at my insistence that I’m still a virgin. I wouldn’t normally want to discuss that kind of intimate detail so readily, but it felt important, knowing what was coming next.

  The rest tumbled out after, sloppy and disordered, too many cluttered details. It’s a wonder they could make sense of it all.

  “Elliot Jackson is your donor. Max is your brother. Your half brother.” Mimmy says it now like the words are just clicking into place, minutes after she first heard them.

  “Yes.”

  “How did we pick our neighbor? How is that possible?” She turns from me to Mama, back to me again.

  I shrug. “Technically he wasn’t your neighbor at the time. He was already gone. Living in Philly. Only old Mr. Jackson—his dad—was there.”

  “I’m not sure that changes anything,” Mama says. She shifts her chair closer to Mimmy’s, wraps an arm around her shoulders to keep her sturdy.

  “Do you hate me?” I can’t look at them. Instead I pick at a stray blueberry on the plate of granola bars, mash it between my fingers.

  “How can you even say that?” Mimmy asks. She lays her hand on the table, and I reach out to hold it. She doesn’t flinch at the sticky berry film on my fingers. “Look at me, sweetie. Please.” I lift my gaze to meet her eyes. Brown eyes. Not blue like mine—or blue like Mama’s. Or Elliot’s. “This doesn’t change anything about our love for you. It doesn’t change anything about this family. You are just as much ours. Always a Silversmith. Always.”

  “But you’re not upset that I asked to make contact in the first place?”

  “Of course not. You had every right. I only wish you could have felt comfortable telling us your decision. But I understand why you didn’t. You needed to do it for yourself. I respect that. We both do, don’t we
?” She gives Mama a quick glance.

  “Yes.”

  “Yes?” I say, needing more.

  “I understand.” Mama puts her hand on top of mine. “I respect the decision. I don’t love it, but—I respect it. And I love you so damn much and all I can think about right now is how much I’m hurting for you. How unfair this is. Every man on this green earth and we picked the neighbor. You said he’s a serial cheater, right? And a terrible dad?”

  I nod, inwardly flinching at the description. “Hopefully I only got the good genes. He’s a lawyer, you know. Probably had to put himself through school—I think he had a rough family life.” I leave it at that—decide not to elaborate on my potential murderer of a grandfather right now. One too many anecdotes for today, and my moms have heard the stories. Rumors, they always insisted, even if Mimmy was spooked by the Jackson house, too.

  “Did we make the wrong choice?” Mama asks. “I don’t even remember why we picked his particular sperm now. It was probably no better than any other sperm in the bank.”

  “Of course it wasn’t the wrong choice!” Mimmy slaps the table hard with her free hand. “If we’d picked any other sperm, we’d have a completely different daughter sitting in front of us. Or son. Who knows? It wouldn’t be Calliope, though. So no—no matter how awful everything seems right now, it wasn’t the wrong choice. I’d make it over and over again if it meant having you.”

  “Thanks, Mimmy.” I give a weak smile. Just because it’s true doesn’t make it any less odd to think about—I am only here, I am only alive, because of Elliot Jackson.

  “You’re right,” Mama says, “that was idiotic of me. I just can’t shake the guilt. I feel like we were in some way responsible. Our decisions led to this point. Maybe we could have picked a different house. A different town. I don’t know. Done something differently—just one thing. And then my baby girl wouldn’t have a battered heart right now.”

  “You couldn’t have known,” I say. I feel drained. Defeated. “And no one could have suspected sooner and stopped us from getting to this point. It’s not like Max and I look anything alike.”

  As soon as the words are out, I wonder if that’s true. I haven’t let myself think about it before now.

  It’s easy to say we look totally different. He’s Black and I’m white. He’s masculine, I’m feminine. But of course that’s too simple an answer. A cheap, lazy default. There is so much more to both of us. But analyzing all the other details—nose, eyes, lips, teeth, ears, hair, fingers, toes, bone structure—it’s too much. It’s one thing to find myself in Elliot. It’s another thing altogether to see those same things in Max.

  “What can we do to help you right now?” Mimmy asks. Mama has taken her hand away, busying herself with sweeping up granola crumbs from the tablecloth, but Mimmy still grips me tight.

  “I don’t know. I don’t think there’s anything any of us can do. Right now I just want to give Max a few days. He’s angry, I know. But hopefully once it all settles… we can be friends again.” Friends. It sounds so flimsy, even to my ears. Were we ever really just friends?

  “He has no right to be angry, not with you,” Mimmy says, a subtle edge to her voice. “And you have absolutely nothing to apologize for. You do know that?”

  I nod. She’s right. Of course she is.

  “I’ll talk some sense into that boy if he doesn’t come around,” Mama chimes in, the edge in her voice far less subtle. “And what about Elliot? Should we talk to him, Mimmy and I? Have some kind of, I don’t know, introductory conversation?”

  The thought of that introductory conversation makes me cringe. “No. Not yet. Maybe eventually we can all meet. But it feels too soon. There’s nothing to say to him.”

  “Okay. Well. We could go on a trip somewhere, just the three of us, maybe camping in the Poconos,” Mama says, “even if it means closing down the studio for a few days. August is always a slow month.” Now that the crumbs are all cleaned, she’s unfolding and refolding a pile of linen napkins.

  The idea is certainly appealing—running somewhere far away from our woods and the Jackson house. Pretending none of this is happening, that life is still good and normal. But Mama herself told me I can’t escape my problems. I’d always have to end up here. In this place, surrounded by these people.

  I shake my head. “A wise woman once said that if something’s upsetting me, it probably won’t just go away. I need to be brave. Face it head-on.”

  “That is wise. I don’t know if I’ve ever been prouder of you than I am in this very moment. Come here.” She opens her arms, and I rush toward her.

  I fall into her lap, and she and Mimmy surround me with their arms.

  I cry, and they cry with me. And then Mimmy makes banana waffles with her homemade maple whipped cream for dinner. We sit in front of the TV watching our old Anne of Green Gables VHS tapes until I fall asleep—dreaming of wild cherry trees and Haunted Woods and a magical place far away from this one I’m living in now.

  Chapter Fifteen

  MY moms suggest I skip my shift at the studio on Sunday, but I insist on working. I need to be busy, even though I’ve barely slept in three nights. I need to not be in the house. And coffee. I need lots of coffee.

  But the usual studio chores aren’t enough to distract me today. My mind continues to dissect all the terrible particulars of my life. One by one, slowly, over and over again.

  When Ginger walks in halfway through the shift, I’m relieved.

  Until I remember—she told Noah.

  “Hey,” she says, not meeting my eyes. Her outfit is more subdued today, black yoga pants and a plain green T-shirt.

  “Hey.”

  I try to decide, quickly, if I’m mad at her. I’m feeling so many things, it’s almost like I’m actually feeling nothing. Just a blur of loud, constant emotions rumbling in the background. Like crickets buzzing all night long, so noisy and persistent that after a while it starts to sound like silence. This is my new silence. My new state of being.

  “I shouldn’t have told him. It was your secret. Not mine. It’s just—” She looks up finally, her green eyes rimmed with deep purple circles. Her whole face is tired, her freckles oddly dark and pronounced against her pale skin. It’s a rare sighting of Ginger with no makeup. No dark mascara on her white-blond lashes. No pop of red or pink or purple on her lips. She looks so young and innocent. Vulnerable. I don’t think it’s possible to be mad at this Ginger. “It’s just that it was such a crazy big truth. I didn’t know how to hold it in by myself. It was wrong to tell him, but I was going to explode without anyone to talk to about it, and I couldn’t bother you with all my questions. I’m so sorry, Calliope. I understand if you want to kill me. On top of everything else going on right now, you didn’t need me to be a shit friend.”

  I walk around the side of the counter, stopping a few inches in front of her. She takes a sharp inhale, waiting.

  “It’s okay.” And it is. I don’t have it in me to fight with Ginger. Without her, life would be definitively too empty.

  “No. It’s really not. I shouldn’t have said a word to him.”

  “Maybe not, but it’s done.” I reach out and take her hand. She tightens her fingers around mine, latching on like she’s afraid if she lets go, I might change my mind. “It’s over, no going back. I told Max everything. So the secret’s out.”

  “Wait,” she says, holding up her free hand. “So much to process. Max knows he’s your half brother?” Hearing it out loud—half brother—is still a cold slap.

  I nod.

  “Wow.”

  “Yep. Wow sums it up.”

  “I’m stunned that, between you and me, you’re the one with the colorful shit show of drama in your life right now. Guess I always thought that was more my territory? Huh. Well, definitely a summer to remember.”

  I dig my nails into her palm. “How sweet and sensitive of you. Personally, I think it’s a summer I’d like to immediately forget.”

  She digs back, and—
given her nails are much sharper than mine, filed into perfect mini-talons—her punishment is more effective. “It’s my job as your best friend to make jokes when I can. You need to laugh. This will destroy you if you can’t find a way to laugh sometimes.”

  “You didn’t do a good job then. You didn’t make me laugh.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll keep trying until it works.”

  “We’ll see.”

  And then, before I can stop her, she has her fingers dancing in my armpits, on my neck, in my ears. I try to resist, not give her such instant satisfaction. But I’m weak when it comes to tickling. I hate it, always have—it makes me feel so powerless. And it also makes me laugh. Every time.

  I let out a breathless cackle before I can stop myself.

  Ginger squeals, victorious, and doubles down even harder.

  I tickle back, and soon we’re on the floor, faces covered in tears, holding our stomachs from too much laughing. My abs burn. I feel like I just did one of Mama’s core-power routines.

  The class ends then, and a few women trickle out, giving us amused glances. Mama is there, too, looking down at us, shaking her head as if she could possibly be angry. She spills a few drops of ice water on us from her thermos before chatting with some of the women.

  “Tickling doesn’t count as real laughter,” I say, gasping for breath. “That was cheap.”

  “I’ll take cheap laughter over no laughter.”

  “Thank you. I love you.” I take her hand.

  “You’re welcome. And I love you, too.” She squeezes my fingers tight.

  “It’s your birthday in less than two weeks. We should do something fun.”

  “Um. Duh. That’s kind of assumed.”

  “Do you think Noah will come?”

  She’s quiet for a beat. And then: “I sure hope so.”

  The next day I sit on the porch for hours. Flipping through my moms’ yoga magazines without reading. Willing Max to step out from the woods. I feel restless without more resolution. I can’t stand to leave things like we did. So much anger and resentment. It feels cruel, unfair. Max is better than this. At least I hope he is.