Far from the Tree(13)

“She’s not terrible, just annoying,” Maya said. “You know that smart kid that’s in your class and always knows the answers and the teacher leaves her in charge whenever she has to step out of the classroom for a minute?” Maya arched her back so she could look at Grace upside down again. “That’s Lauren.”

“That sounds fun to live with,” Grace said.

Maya smiled. “So we both inherited the sarcasm gene. Good.” Then she sighed and sat back up. “My parents don’t really get it when I’m sarcastic. It complicates things.”

“Um, speaking of inheriting,” Grace said, and Maya looked over at her, suddenly still as a deer. “I mean, not money or anything, but I’m trying to find our biological mom.”

Maya let out a huge sigh and slumped back down on the bed. “Ugh. Have fun.”

“You don’t want to?”

Maya rolled back over so they were face-to-face. She had a lot of energy, and Grace suddenly wondered if Maya was nervous. “Look,” she said, “I know we’re in the same boat here, so you do you or whatever, but she gave us away. She gave us up. Like, fly, little chickadees. Why would I want to find a woman who didn’t want me in the first place?”

“You don’t know that, though!” Grace said, louder than she meant to. The room felt very warm all of a sudden. “What if she was young, or scared? What if her parents made her give us away?”

“Well, then, how come she hasn’t come looking for us?” Maya asked, in a way that Grace knew meant she wasn’t waiting for a response. “Point, me.”

“Maybe she doesn’t want to upset us or—”

“Grace, look, if you want to find her, go for it. But I’m out. I just want to graduate, go to New York with Claire, and move away from here and finally start my life. I’m not interested in going backward, okay?”

Grace knew right then that Maya was angry—at their bio mother. And that as a result, she could never tell Maya about Peach.

“But it’s cool if we hang out,” Maya added, and Grace wondered what her face looked like if Maya felt the need to add that part. “You seem nice, your parents seem fine, and you know, if I ever need a kidney or a blood transfusion, it wouldn’t hurt to have you in my contacts.” She smiled a little. “And vice versa, of course, although I faint around needles.”

Grace nodded. What was she going to do, force this new person to go on a wild-goose chase with her? “Okay,” she said. “If that’s how you feel.”

“Really?” Maya picked up her pillow and hugged it to her. “God, that was easy. Lauren would just whine and whine until I finally said yes.”

“Well, that’s a sister thing. Give me some time—I’m sure I can work on it.”

“I would maybe be interested in finding our brother, though,” Maya said.

Grace nodded. She hadn’t told anyone—and she had no plans to, either—but she kept having nightmares that Peach’s new parents gave her away, that she was suddenly gone all over again, lost in the system that had ensnared Joaquin. But instead of saying any of this, she dug her phone out of her pocket. “I talked to his social worker last week. My parents helped me track down her info, and she said that we could email him.”

“She did?” Maya set her pillow down, leaning forward. “Why does he have a social worker?”

“Because he was, um . . .” Grace squirmed a little, the duvet no longer as comfortable. “Because he wasn’t adopted. Like, ever? He’s been living with this family about an hour away from here, but he’s been in a lot of different homes since before then.”

Maya’s eyes grew wide, and Grace finally saw the little-sister potential in her. She could imagine Maya toddling after her, annoying her, pulling her hair and borrowing her clothes without asking first. She didn’t tell Maya about all the people she’d talked to on the phone, trying to follow a seventeen-year-old trail of bread crumbs that had mostly blown to the wind and taken Joaquin with them. She didn’t mention that some people had been rude, others had been so helpful that it made Grace’s heart hurt, that Joaquin’s family tree seemed to have way too many scraggly branches and not enough roots, not the kind of roots you would need when the storm was strong.

“We should totally email him!” Maya said, then threw her pillow at Grace in excitement. “But you do it. You write really good ‘Hello! I think we might be related!’ emails.”

“I took it as an elective freshman year,” Grace said, then smiled when Maya laughed at her joke.

So that’s how Grace ended up drafting yet another email to a sibling she had never met.

Hi Joaquin,

You don’t know me, but I think we share some family. I know your social worker mentioned that we might email you. A girl named Maya and I recently found out that we’re biological sisters. We were both adopted and met each other for the first time and, after doing some research, realized that you might be our brother.

Would you be interested in meeting up with us? We live about an hour away so we could meet you anywhere.

Best wishes,

Grace & Maya

“Best wishes?” Maya said when she saw the email. “Seriously?”

“It’s warm without being personal,” Grace explained, shrugging her shoulders.