Where the Stars Still Shine(6)

We don’t talk on the drive to the airport in Chicago, except for when he says to tell him if the heat gets too warm or if I’d prefer a different radio station. Mom always talked—talks—she always talks too much, as if the silence makes her lonely. I don’t mind the soft musical babble of the radio or listening to the hum of the tires on pavement, and I’m glad Greg isn’t flooding me with words I’m not ready to hear. If no one says it out loud, there’s still a chance that none of this is real.





“Take the window.” Greg gestures toward the far seat in row eight. “You can watch as we take off and land.”

He doesn’t know if I’ve ever been on a plane before, so his suggestion makes me feel as if he thinks I was raised by wolves. My cheeks go hot with anger, but his expression seems earnest, and I realize maybe he’s being kind. The truth is, I’ve never been on a plane, and I do want to watch as we take off and land.

Sitting beside the window reminds me of Mom. We didn’t always have a car. Sometimes we rode the bus, buying as much distance as our money would allow. She always gave me the window seat, putting herself between me and the crazies—like the old lady whose lipstick bled into the cracks around her mouth. She was convinced I was her dead daughter come back to life. When Mom refused to give me to her, the woman screamed until the driver stopped and made her get off the bus. The plane to Tampa is different from the bus. It doesn’t smell bad and nearly everyone is smiling. Probably pleased to be escaping the breath of winter that’s been at the back of our necks for the past couple of weeks.

“Takeoff is always my favorite part,” Greg says, craning his neck to look out the window as Chicago shrinks smaller and smaller. “I guess because the destination—unless you’ve been there before—is ripe with possibility.”

The city disappears beneath a bank of clouds, and I close my eyes to keep from crying again. With every mile I’m farther away from my mom than I have ever been and I am … lost. Life with her is wonderful and terrible, but at least I know how to be her daughter. I have no idea how to live in Greg’s world.

“I have something for you.” He holds out a red leather photo album. I take it and open the front cover. Pasted on the front page is a pink birth announcement card for Callista Catherine Tzorvas.

Running my fingertips over the raised black letters, I speak to him for the first time. “My name is Callista?”

Greg’s chuckle dies in his throat when he realizes I’m not joking. “You didn’t know?”

I shake my head, and his eyebrows pull together. I watch as a battle wages on his face, wondering if he’s thinking the same bad things about Mom as I am. When she stole me, she left behind all the parts she didn’t want anymore. Including my real name.

“It’s Greek,” he says finally. “It means ‘the most beautiful one.’ And Tzorvas”—the tz makes a ch sound when he says it—“means you’re part of a big crazy Greek family whose noses will be in your business all the time, but who will drop everything if you need them.”

I don’t want to be angry with my mother all over again, so I push the feeling away and turn the page. There is a snapshot of her holding a newborn me, with Greg beside her. They’re teenagers—about as old as I am now—and she’s the beautiful grunge girl I remember. Mom is looking down at me and he is looking at her. He loved her and she wrecked him.

I exhale as I close the album.

“Sorry,” he says. “It’s a lot to process, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“I made it for, um—it’s yours, so you can look at it whenever. No rush.”

I rest my head against the little oval window, and for a while I just sit, watching the clouds and the miles pass. Through a break I see what I think might be Tennessee. Mom and I lived there for a few months when I was seven. I remember, because she worked the morning shift at a diner and would sometimes take me to the park to play with other kids. The other moms would circle up to talk—some with babies on their hips—but they never included my mom in their conversations. If she cared, she never showed it. She’d fan herself out on the grass with her portable CD player, chain-smoking cigarettes and singing along with Pearl Jam, her forever favorite band. Tennessee wasn’t as good as our first place in North Carolina—where I still went to school—but we were still happy. And Mom hadn’t met Frank yet.

“Why did she take me?” I ask.

“She was scared,” Greg says. “Our relationship was falling apart, and my parents were pushing me to get full custody so they could take care of you while I went to college. Your mom—she was convinced I wasn’t going to let her see you, so she left.”

He sounds so sincere that it seems impossible that he’s not telling the truth, but in Mom’s version of the story, he is the villain.

“Do you think she’ll go to prison?”

“Maybe.” He pushes his hand through his hair. “Probably.” He sighs. “This is not what I wanted for her. Not ever.”

The conversation is interrupted by the flight attendant pushing the drink cart. Greg orders Cokes, but I feel guilty that I’m sitting on a plane drinking soda while Mom is in jail. Is she scared? Does she miss me? Does she wonder why I haven’t come to see her?