Heather(73)

The photo of a group of men surprises her, feels like an intrusion, a stark counterpoint to the dreamy and strange pictures of the girls. All those boots and thick, hairy, crossed arms, the stubble and weighty jaws. None of them notice the camera, save a teenage boy, maybe Blair’s age. Light brown hair, smooth, baby-faced cheeks. He stares out of the side of his eyes, the corner of his mouth pulled down.

None of the other pictures feature people. A creepy abandoned building without a roof, crumbling walls of gray stone. A broken Ball jar in the dirt, the glass a pretty aquamarine with a jagged edge. Bunches of dried herbs hung from twine against another dirty windowpane. Two dolls resting in boxes, their hair mussed and wild. A hand, maybe Iris’s, next to a pressed flower that looks a lot like the delicate, crumbling one she found in her mother’s closet. A pair of men’s boots by the door. A chandelier furred with dust. A wallpapered hallway, stained in places, darker in others where pictures must have hung once.



* * *



The girl with the hard stare would have been her aunt. She has to get used to the idea, run it over in her mind, like learning a word in another language. When she was small she always thought her mother and her father’s sister, Margot, were the ones who were related. Margot and her mother laughing and whispering over coffee at the kitchen island. Margot banging through the front door without knocking, a bottle of wine under her arm, scolding Blair’s cousins to take off their shoes, right away busying herself with making coffee as though she were in her own kitchen. Aunt Margot stayed with Blair when each of her brothers were born, lavished her with breakfasts of chocolate chip pancakes. Iris going over to Margot’s house the time she lost the unborn baby who was almost fully grown—until then, Blair hadn’t even known that such a thing could happen—bringing soups and doing the laundry. One day that spring Blair came downstairs to hear hushed voices in the living room, Margot and her mother sitting close to one another on the sofa.

I just want someone else to know she was real, Margot was saying. These are hers.

The women had their backs to Blair, so Blair watched as Margot took a folder from her lap, opened it to a piece of paper bearing two black, inky commas.

Footprints.

Iris didn’t say anything, just sighed and wrapped her arm around Margot. They sat that way for a long time, until Margot rose to go.

After, Iris pulled a throw pillow into her chest and wailed into it, ugly bleating sounds that filled the empty room.

Blair had never seen her mother cry like that and she stood paralyzed on the steps, wondering if she should go to her. Even though her mother and Margot were close, she was shocked at her mother’s grief, terrified of it.

Does Margot know her mother’s secrets? Does her father? Or is it just Blair? Her burden to carry, to decide what to do with it.



* * *



The idea comes to her in the middle of calculus. She doesn’t know why she hadn’t thought of this before. Her mother didn’t come from no one, from nowhere, even if she doesn’t like to talk about it. The photos are one kind of proof, but she can find another.

In between classes she pulls up the website for the genetic testing company. Her friend Allegra’s mom did it, and she found this second cousin on her dad’s side who she met once before at a family barbecue when they were four. But there was some falling out between the parents so they hadn’t seen each other since, and turns out they live twenty minutes away from one another so now they meet for coffee all the time.

Genes are a story, the website says. The most powerful story on Earth.

It gives Blair the shivers to read that. To think of unlocking the promise of something so basic, so elemental and taken for granted, this narrative she’s carried around in her body for every minute of her life.

Her mother has always found a way to bat away her questions about her childhood. Her father always took her mother’s side. There’s a lot of pain there, Blair Bear. Your mom prefers to focus on how lucky she is now, how much she loves you and your brothers. A spike of anger in Blair. How can her mother keep all of this hidden? This story is Blair’s story too.

In study hall she orders the kit using her Dad’s credit card, which is saved on her phone. Her mother is more meticulous about checking the statements, more careful with money in general, while she can get away with slipping some things on her dad’s bill without him noticing; or if he notices, he doesn’t ask. And if he asks, she will just tell him the truth. She wants to—deserves to—understand where she comes from.

And, she could end up doing some good. What if she finds her mother’s lost sister? What if she changes the story for the better? She can picture it now, her mother and aunt hugging, their mannerisms so similar across all these years, their faces still the same, aged in the same ways, that it is like a woman looking in the mirror at herself. They will laugh and cry and wonder at the thought they were never going to see one another again, if it hadn’t been for Blair. Blair will have another aunt blowing through the front door like a brisk wind; she’ll get to listen to them talk about their fights and their school days and what they liked to do for fun. Another aunt who will take her out for pedicures, let her have sips of champagne on New Year’s while her parents are in the other room. Another aunt who will stand shoulder to shoulder with her and show her how to be a woman in this world.



* * *