Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls(66)

Here we go again, says my mother.

You ever feel like history just keeps repeating itself? Never stops circling?

The next morning, we drive to Hannah’s house. I am happy to see her home, which is not burned but upright, sturdy, warm. I am happy to lie in her bed; I am happy to smell her hair, her sweaters. Mostly, I am happy to see Hannah, who has been writing me letters, checking in. In the corner of the room, she’s organized my things. Socks, pillows, stacks of books, the Christmas gifts. It’s all still here.

Let’s do those DNA tests, I tell Hannah. Her mother bought her one, too.

Do what? asks my mother.

This spit test, I say. You send it in the mail, and this company supposedly breaks down your ancestry, I say. That family tree I’ve been planning on.

Why would you want to do all that? my mother closes the book on her lap.

Hannah and I open the kits. We spit into the plastic tubes. I make puckering faces as I try to produce enough saliva to fill to the line, not too many bubbles. We watch the liquid settle. I punch in a blue gel to activate the test, shake the tube. I place it back in the prestamped box. Hand it over.

Later that night, in bed, Hannah asks me about the past few months. New Hampshire. The dreams about my father. My drinking. My health.

You ever sit in the car, or in a window seat on the subway, and the car or train next to you starts to move? And you think you’re the one moving? And you’d swear by it? And sometimes, in your stomach, you can even feel it?

That. I say. That’s what life’s like now.

SPRING, 1976

HOLLYWOOD, FLORIDA

The call comes in the middle of the night, though Peter Gelbwaks is still at work. He’s been working all hours lately, selling insurance to pay off the medical bills for the daughter who never came home. Osteogenesis imperfecta. Her name, he and his wife told The Attorney, was supposed to be Dana. Hear the phone ringing. See Sharon Gelbwaks, twenty-six years old, asleep in her bed, alone.

Hello? she picks up. Peter?

It’s The Attorney.

I’ve a question for you, he says. And answer honestly.

Sharon is just beginning to make out the voice, its familiarity, the person on the other end of line, when The Attorney says, If I were to tell you I found a baby, but it’s biracial, would you still be interested?

Yes, she says. Of course I would. Of course we would.

Do you want to ask your husband?

Sharon pauses. Could they? Could they really provide a life for this baby—Jewish parents, a Jewish sister—in which this child would feel comfortable? Understood? Would the child be taunted? Would she know how to cut the child’s hair?

She thinks back to their last meeting with The Attorney, 150 applications slapped down on the desk, ahead of them. This girl is young, said The Attorney. No prenatal care; she found out too late to do anything about it. By the look of her, I can tell how she got herself into trouble.

Our daughter Dana had a place in our house, a bassinet, said Sharon. I spent my whole pregnancy making this bassinet, every day I did, and then I guess I never really had to make it.

We’re good people, Peter had said. Every bone in our daughter’s body was broken.

Sharon grips the phone harder. Peter says of course, she lies.

Well, that’s good news, says The Attorney. Because no other applicant was interested. If you meet me at my office tomorrow, we’ll get to signing some papers.

Congratulations, he says, and, Goodnight.



In ancient Hawaiian folklore, the worst fate to befall someone is for their spirit, or ‘uhane, to be abandoned. Spirits should be visited, cared for, returned to, nurtured. Any spirit should be treated as one’s family.

Hawaiians are told to check for the presence of ‘uhane by peering into bowls of water or lacing a trail of leaves on the ground. A human will tear the leaves with their own weight or show up, reflected, in the water. A spirit will not.

Forgotten spirits are called Kuewa. They are left to chew on mothballs, to haunt, forever, the empty dark. Sometimes, if truly angered, these forgotten spirits will visit the places they once knew, and relive their histories.

Huaka‘i pō—this is the term I was taught—Marchers of the Night.

SUMMER, 1997

SEVEN DEVILS, NORTH CAROLINA

I’ve been sworn out of the house. We are in Seven Devils, North Carolina, and my mother says, Go now, drive down the mountain, go fishing, go. She is baking a cake for my ninth birthday party—I know this much—but she and my father are also planning a surprise for me: a mini-horse named Tulip.

My aunts and uncles drive me down the mountain to the trout farm. My hair is still cut short, and I’m wearing my new denim overalls with a floppy, silk sunflower on the pocket. I pierce the kernels of corn, bob clumsily with my rod, while my cousins play with the worms, pretend to eat them.

My mother has always cast a line for me, and I’m unsure how to do it alone. I jiggle the release back and forth, jerk the pole up and down like I’m trying to rouse a rabbit from a hat. I fling the pole above my head, spin it in circles, swipe it like a baseball bat toward the lake, the hook flying in a tiny spark.

I don’t feel the snag. I don’t see it. But I hear the swarm of bees descend around my body. Wings zoom, breaking the air. My vision splits. My face vibrates all over. I swat my arms, screaming, hoping the bees don’t fly into my mouth. I kick, swing, fall, cry. It seems to last forever, this buzzing, though it couldn’t have been very long at all.