Blood is thicker than what now?
I slipped through the maze of boxes to the office, wary of my wings. Working on Halloween in costume at the mall was a draining experience, and I was looking forward to a little bit of time away from hordes of kids in power rangers and princess costumes to eat my lunch. I had just settled down in the squeaky chair behind the desk and unwrapped my squished peanut butter and jelly sandwich and bruised banana when there was a knock at the open door, when a petite redheaded woman poked her head in. Though I didn’t recognize her at all, there was still something sort of familiar about her. Maybe I’d seen her in the store?
I slipped back into customer service mode more quickly than I found comfortable and smiled what I hoped wasn’t a terribly fake smile and asked “can I help you?” I figured that she’d managed to wander back here, somehow, though how she got past my co-workers was a mystery to me.
“Hi!” she said warmly and walked further into the room. I could feel my smile wearing a little thin. What was all this then? “So… do you remember me?”
Oh hell. I glanced down at my sandwich sadly and tried to dredge her face up and make a mental connection. This was not the kind of thing I was good at.1 She only let me squirm for about twenty seconds before she exclaimed “I’m your sister.”
Um…
I might have blinked a few times.
“Your mom wants to meet you.”
Well OK THEN.
I have never been a person who tries to plan for all contingencies, who likes to nail down the world of possibilities and make it fit her expectations. All the same, this was the most unexpected thing to happen to me, uh, ever. My parents divorced when I was three years old. My mom had two kids from two prior marriages - my brother and suddenly present sister - and after the divorce, my father gained custody of me without any court battles or shenanigans at all. And about a year and a half after that, my mom dropped out of my life, taking my half-siblings with her. From my perspective, she just disappeared.
If I had to rank “meeting my estranged (?) mother and sister in the mall while dressed as a fairy after seventeen years of no contact” on a scale of 12 to 103, this was an 11. Maybe even a 124.
So, of course, I smiled at how the universe sometimes pulls the rug out from under you (or me, as the case may be) and went off to the food court to go meet my mom. At least I’d figured out why my sister looked familiar - we share the same eye shape and color.
My mom bought me an ice cream cone from McDonalds and then spent quite a while justifying herself to me. Apparently, she’d never abandoned me. She loved me very much. She was keen to be part of my life again. As the chocolate dripped down onto the square little table and my sister sat between us looking back and forth as though she were a spectator at a very interesting tennis match, I just listened. And gripped the edge of the table as though the giddy ball of laughter in my stomach might make me rise up above the food court din on my sparkly purple fabric wings. And cried, of course. The tears came whether I wanted them to or not, and prompted a lot of monologuing from my mom. I didn’t say much. There wasn’t much to say.5
I had twenty minutes for lunch, and ended up taking more like forty. She pushed things into my hands once I’d set aside the soggy cone and wiped my fingers off on the cheap napkins - a phone number, a little silver ring from her pinky finger, promises, words. There were hugs. My sister whispered to me that she'd see me soon.
And then I went back to the store6, where we sold telescopes and science kits and aromatherapy oils and chess sets and all sorts of apparently random things (we once had giant plastic blow-up tulips in stock. I… don’t even know) and Tonya met me as I was on my way in. Sixteen year old Tonya. She hadn’t even been alive for as many years as there’d been silence between us.
“So, how’d it go?” She clearly wanted to hug me, but didn’t want to in the middle of the store.
“Um… it was fine. I have some things.”
“I was getting my nails done, and I was talking to… I guess she’s your sister? And your name came up, and…”
If I’d been a little more coherent, I probably would have asked what on earth she’d been saying about me. I can only hope it was good things?
“And well, it sort of came out that the other lady there was your mom! I hope you don’t mind that I arranged all this.”
“Yeah. No. It’s ok.”
And then I navigated the cardboard maze of the staff area again, to the bathroom instead of the office this time. I laid down the things she’d given me in a little row on the top of the sink, ran cold water over my hands, and stared at my suddenly strange face in the mirror. Thinking of family. Thinking of blood and water and relative densities. I splashed a little water on my face, smearing away the baffled tear tracks. Straightened my wings. Went back to work.7
~~~
1. This is a massive understatement.
2. With a score of 1 being “something totally normal and commonplace”
3. With a score of 2 being “whafuck?"
4. With a score of 12 being "a daytime romp through a Salvador Dali painting without the use of drugs"
5. This is not strictly true. I did say things like "mmhmm" and "oh". And I did have things to say - I just said them later, in a twenty page typed letter. It took a while.
6. I worked at "Natural Wonders". It was kind of awesome, and also kind of bizarre. Just usually not bizarre like this.
7. For the record: Yes, I did meet up with my mother and my sister again. We were in touch for a while, before I made the choice to distance myself from them. Perhaps, if I'm feeling brave, I'll tell some other stories from that time. We'll see.
I slipped back into customer service mode more quickly than I found comfortable and smiled what I hoped wasn’t a terribly fake smile and asked “can I help you?” I figured that she’d managed to wander back here, somehow, though how she got past my co-workers was a mystery to me.
“Hi!” she said warmly and walked further into the room. I could feel my smile wearing a little thin. What was all this then? “So… do you remember me?”
Oh hell. I glanced down at my sandwich sadly and tried to dredge her face up and make a mental connection. This was not the kind of thing I was good at.1 She only let me squirm for about twenty seconds before she exclaimed “I’m your sister.”
Um…
I might have blinked a few times.
“Your mom wants to meet you.”
Well OK THEN.
I have never been a person who tries to plan for all contingencies, who likes to nail down the world of possibilities and make it fit her expectations. All the same, this was the most unexpected thing to happen to me, uh, ever. My parents divorced when I was three years old. My mom had two kids from two prior marriages - my brother and suddenly present sister - and after the divorce, my father gained custody of me without any court battles or shenanigans at all. And about a year and a half after that, my mom dropped out of my life, taking my half-siblings with her. From my perspective, she just disappeared.
If I had to rank “meeting my estranged (?) mother and sister in the mall while dressed as a fairy after seventeen years of no contact” on a scale of 12 to 103, this was an 11. Maybe even a 124.
So, of course, I smiled at how the universe sometimes pulls the rug out from under you (or me, as the case may be) and went off to the food court to go meet my mom. At least I’d figured out why my sister looked familiar - we share the same eye shape and color.
My mom bought me an ice cream cone from McDonalds and then spent quite a while justifying herself to me. Apparently, she’d never abandoned me. She loved me very much. She was keen to be part of my life again. As the chocolate dripped down onto the square little table and my sister sat between us looking back and forth as though she were a spectator at a very interesting tennis match, I just listened. And gripped the edge of the table as though the giddy ball of laughter in my stomach might make me rise up above the food court din on my sparkly purple fabric wings. And cried, of course. The tears came whether I wanted them to or not, and prompted a lot of monologuing from my mom. I didn’t say much. There wasn’t much to say.5
I had twenty minutes for lunch, and ended up taking more like forty. She pushed things into my hands once I’d set aside the soggy cone and wiped my fingers off on the cheap napkins - a phone number, a little silver ring from her pinky finger, promises, words. There were hugs. My sister whispered to me that she'd see me soon.
And then I went back to the store6, where we sold telescopes and science kits and aromatherapy oils and chess sets and all sorts of apparently random things (we once had giant plastic blow-up tulips in stock. I… don’t even know) and Tonya met me as I was on my way in. Sixteen year old Tonya. She hadn’t even been alive for as many years as there’d been silence between us.
“So, how’d it go?” She clearly wanted to hug me, but didn’t want to in the middle of the store.
“Um… it was fine. I have some things.”
“I was getting my nails done, and I was talking to… I guess she’s your sister? And your name came up, and…”
If I’d been a little more coherent, I probably would have asked what on earth she’d been saying about me. I can only hope it was good things?
“And well, it sort of came out that the other lady there was your mom! I hope you don’t mind that I arranged all this.”
“Yeah. No. It’s ok.”
And then I navigated the cardboard maze of the staff area again, to the bathroom instead of the office this time. I laid down the things she’d given me in a little row on the top of the sink, ran cold water over my hands, and stared at my suddenly strange face in the mirror. Thinking of family. Thinking of blood and water and relative densities. I splashed a little water on my face, smearing away the baffled tear tracks. Straightened my wings. Went back to work.7
~~~
1. This is a massive understatement.
2. With a score of 1 being “something totally normal and commonplace”
3. With a score of 2 being “whafuck?"
4. With a score of 12 being "a daytime romp through a Salvador Dali painting without the use of drugs"
5. This is not strictly true. I did say things like "mmhmm" and "oh". And I did have things to say - I just said them later, in a twenty page typed letter. It took a while.
6. I worked at "Natural Wonders". It was kind of awesome, and also kind of bizarre. Just usually not bizarre like this.
7. For the record: Yes, I did meet up with my mother and my sister again. We were in touch for a while, before I made the choice to distance myself from them. Perhaps, if I'm feeling brave, I'll tell some other stories from that time. We'll see.