2004 - LAUREL RIDGE HOUSE
Jen put her arms around my shoulders.
I stared straight ahead at the far wall, my grandmother’s china cabinet, full of her teacup collection, frozen, while Jen tried to hug me close, to offer solace and a hug of support. I just stared blinking at that china cabinet, wondering,how would I know if I was adopted?
I scoffed to myself.
I knew I wasn’t adopted. I knew it, it was a fact, I had always known it, it had always been true,except…
I had always kind of wondered.
When I was younger I wondered about it a lot, thinking of my family as a little bit different from me in some way. But didn’t all little kids wonder that sometimes? Your parents would be embarrassing or mean and feel foreign and you’d wish that there was an explanation better than, ‘parents are just like that sometimes.’ It was a way of coping with growing up, millions of little girls thought they were adopted,sometimes.But then when my parents died… after that, I hadn’t wanted to think about it anymore. It seemed unfair. Traitorous, almost. Like I was an ungrateful brat for having it ever cross my mind.
So it didn’t cross my mind.
It had been years since I had felt that way.
Those feelings were long lost relics of my youth.
Jen said, “You’re shaking.”
“Was I adopted?”
She was quiet. Then she said, “No, of course not — did anyone ever tell you that you were adopted?”
“No, definitely not.”
“See? I think people tell you if you are.”
“But my parents died, maybe they died before they could tell me.”
“Ah, sweetie.”
Her hands smoothed up and down on my arms, trying to sooth and soften me, but I was stiff and staring, my mind computing nothing.
“That can’t possibly be true.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know, it doesn’t seem right.”
“That’s enough?”
She shrugged. “Yeah. Do you think it’s true?”
“I don’t know. Not logically, but… somewhere down deep it hit me, my dream you know?”
“I think you’re in shock.”
I nodded. “Probably, I’m feeling really fuzzy headed, having trouble being logical?—”
Cooper stormed in.
“He won’t totally leave, but said he’d be out on the edge of the property. I did my best.”
Jen let go of me.
He stood in front of me. His brow furrowed. “How are you doing?”
