Far from the Tree(57)

That’s when Joaquin knew that he would never tell Grace and Maya what had really happened: why he had left the Buchanans, why he really wasn’t a good person. Instead, he said, “It’s hard to explain. You wouldn’t understand. Birdie, she had all these baby pictures.”

Grace sat up straight, her mouth in a hard line. “You don’t have any baby pictures,” she said quietly.

She looked so sad all of a sudden, and Joaquin wanted to take the sadness away. He was so tired of making the people around him sad when he all he wanted to do was keep them safe. “No. And you have to buy school pictures, those packages that they sell.” Joaquin shrugged. “Birdie had all these photos. Someone had saved them for her. I saw those and I thought . . .” Joaquin’s voice trailed off as he remembered how the photos had made his stomach feel like it was collapsing in on itself. “We would never be equal. She would always have more than me. Always need more than me. She needs someone who understands things like she does.”

“Joaquin.” Maya put her hand on his arm. “I think you’re a fucking idiot.”

Grace covered her eyes with her hand. “Maya,” she sighed.

Maya just kept her hand on his arm. “No, I mean it,” she said, and Joaquin didn’t know if she was just super upset or super high, but the earnestness on her face made him smile a little. “Did you see those pictures on the stairway when you came in? Really see them?”

Joaquin nodded. “Pretty intense.”

Maya’s eyes were starting to well up again. She was definitely high. “I mean, my parents read all these books about adoption, and adopted kids, and how to accept and love your adopted child, but I’ve never seen them read a single book about their biological kid, you know? They don’t read books about Lauren. Just me. Because I’m different. I’m work.

“So I’m just saying, maybe don’t break up with Birdie just because you think you can’t give her things. Maybe that’s not what she even wants from you, you know? Maybe she just wants you. Pictures are the past, that’s all. Maybe you’re her future.”

Joaquin could feel that same shaky feeling that he had gotten when he’d broken up with Birdie, watching her face crumble and knowing that it was, as Maya had said earlier about her own breakup, 100 percent his fault. “Okay,” he said after a minute. “So what about you and Claire, then?”

Maya rolled her eyes. “Nice segue.”

“No, I’m serious,” Joaquin said. “You should call her.”

“She probably deleted my phone number.”

“Probably not. You think I should get back together with Birdie? Well, then, I think you should get back together with Claire.”

“It’s been less than twenty-four hours,” Grace pointed out. “You should at least tell her about what happened last night.”

Maya’s lower lip was wobbling a bit. “She said that I shut her out and don’t tell her things because I think that if I tell her the truth about things, she’ll leave me.”

Joaquin let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. “Fuuuuuck,” he said, pressing the heels of his palms against his eyes and laughing to himself. “Did we inherit the same dysfunction or something?”

Maya was giggling now, too, even through her tears. “Why don’t you call Claire and I’ll call Birdie?” she said. “We’d probably have better luck.”

Joaquin smiled. He knew that he would never call Birdie again, but it was a nice thought just the same. Sometimes people broke too hard and you could never put them back together the same way. Birdie would never fit back in his life the way she used to, and it would only make him feel worse if she tried and failed.

“What about you, Gracie?” Maya said. “Why’d you break up with your boyfriend? Since we’re doing group therapy right now, ’fess up.”

But Grace’s eyes were lost in a way that Joaquin recognized from a few foster kids, the ones who had been transferred so many times that they were rudderless, adrift in the storm. She blinked, though, and it disappeared. “Long story,” she said, then started to get to her feet. “I’m hungry. Do you have food?”

Maya and Joaquin watched as she started to walk away. Then Maya pulled her feet out of the water and followed her in. “C’mon, Joaquin,” she said. “Maybe we can draw mustaches on the family photos.”

He laughed at the idea. What a luxury to be able to do that. “Be right there,” he said as the girls disappeared indoors. Once they were gone, he grabbed the pool skimmer and ran it across the bottom of the pool, catching the joint in its net before tossing it out over the fence and then following the girls inside.

“Hey,” Joaquin said. “Do you have a minute?”

Both Mark and Linda looked up. “Yeah, buddy,” Mark said. His hands were in the soapy sink water, rinsing off the last of the dishes while Linda bagged up the trash for Joaquin to take outside. “What’s up?”

Joaquin leaned against the doorjamb, knocking his knuckles against it as if for luck. “I just wanted to talk to you about, um, the adoption thing?”

He watched as Mark’s jaw tightened, as Linda’s eyes grew hopeful. “Yeah, I was just thinking. About it. And um, yeah, maybe we shouldn’t do it.”