Far from the Tree(33)

“Joaquin,” Ana said. “Just because you don’t have baby pictures doesn’t mean that you don’t have a past.”

“I know that,” Joaquin said. “You think I don’t know that? We meet here every single week because of my past. I just don’t want that for Birdie.”

Ana waited a beat before saying, “What about what you want for you?”

“That’s not important. She’s more important.”

“You’re both important, Joaquin. Did you ever tell Birdie about what happened before you came to Mark and Linda’s?”

Joaquin scoffed, rolling his eyes. “Yeah,” he said sarcastically. “I told her all about how they put me on a psychiatric hold when I was twelve. Girls love that story. Especially the pretty ones.”

“What about—”

“Birdie wants things, okay?” Joaquin said, interrupting her. Sometimes it was so frustrating talking to Ana, because she refused to see it from his perspective. If anyone was an expert on Joaquin’s life, it should be Joaquin, after all. “I mean, not things, but just a life . . . I could never give her what she wants.”

“Did she say that?” Ana shot back. “Or did you say that?”

Joaquin looked away. They both already knew the answer.

“What about Maya and Grace?” Ana asked him. “Are you going to tell them about what happened?”

“Nope,” he replied, popping the p sound at the end and looking out the window. An entire van full of kids drove past them, some surfboards sticking out of the back. Joaquin was pretty sure some of them went to his school. He both envied them and never actually wanted to be them.

“You don’t think they would understand?” Ana asked now, pulling Joaquin’s attention back to the restaurant, to the waitress setting their food down on the table.

“Of course they’re not gonna understand!” Joaquin said as soon as he was gone. “They live with these perfect families, they have these perfect lives. What am I going to say, that their older brother who looks nothing like them is crazy?”

Ana raised an eyebrow. She hated that word.

“Sorry,” Joaquin said.

“I don’t know either one of them, but I can tell you that their lives aren’t perfect,” Ana said gently. “Your problems may not be the same, but they have their own shit, I guarantee it.”

Joaquin crossed his arms over his chest.

“Are you upset that your sisters were adopted and you weren’t?”

“Why should they have bad lives just because I did? That’s stupid. They should have good families. They have good families.” He paused before adding, “Grace—she’s the older one—she wants us to look for our bio mom.”

“And what did you say to that?”

“Thanks, but no thanks. So did Maya. Well, she actually said, ‘She gave Joaquin to strangers.’” Joaquin tried to mimic Maya’s indignance, the way she had spit out the word like a swear, like it was the worst thing in the world to not know your family. “Grace is on her own for that one.”

“Did Grace say why she wanted to look for her?”

Joaquin shrugged. “Don’t know. She can talk to her own therapist about that shit.”

Ana smiled at him, and Joaquin smiled back. “Can we go back to Birdie for a minute?” Ana asked.

“Sure. Metaphorically.”

“Touché. Do you miss her?”

Joaquin missed every single thing about Birdie. He missed the smell of her skin, the way her hair would fall across and down his arm whenever she would rest her head on his shoulder. He missed her laugh, her furious anger whenever someone said something she disagreed with.

“A little,” he said. “Sometimes.”

He missed her every single minute of the day.

“So what about your sisters, then?” Ana asked. “Are you just going to push them away when you get to know them better? Run away like you did from Birdie because you think you’re not good enough for them, for anyone?”

Joaquin ate a french fry and didn’t answer. French fries were really terrible when they were cold, but these were hot and crispy. He ate another one.

“Because I’ve got news for you,” Ana continued. “You can’t just push family away. You’re always going to be connected to them.”

Joaquin drew a pattern on the table from the condensation of his glass. “Really?” he said. “Tell that to my mom.”

“Joaquin,” Ana said, and now her voice was gentle. “You deserve to have these people in your life. Mark and Linda, too. You have to forgive yourself for what happened.”

“I can’t,” he said before he could stop himself. “I can’t forgive myself because I don’t even know who I was when I did it. I don’t know that kid at all. He’s a fucking idiot who fucked everything up.”

Ana’s eyes were a little sad as she looked at him. She knew the truth, of course. She had seen the hospitalization records, the police reports, the statement from Joaquin’s adoptive family, the Buchanans.

“I just want to pretend it didn’t happen,” he said after a minute.

“Oh, yeah?” Ana said. “And how’s that working out for you?”