Just for the Summer(94)

“He wants me to call him,” I said, looking up at Justin and Maddy.

Maddy gestured wildly to my phone. “Then call him!”

My heart was pounding in my ears. I didn’t want to call him because I was suddenly extremely scared of what he was going to say.

“Emma. Call,” Maddy said.

I looked at Justin. He was chewing on the side of his thumb. He gave me a small nod. I dialed.

“Hello?” a male voice said on the other line.

“Hi,” I said. “I’m… it’s Emma.”

“I can’t believe this,” the man said. “I’m… I’m speechless. You’re my sister,” he said, almost in wonder. “Do you have any siblings? Are there more?”

“No, just me.”

“Did you just find out who your mom was? Who adopted you?” he asked.

I shook my head like he could see me. “Nobody. Amber raised me.”

There was a long pause. “She raised you,” he said, like he didn’t believe it.

“Yes. Who raised you?” I asked.

“My grandparents. She never mentioned you. Not one word—”

“Wait. You’ve talked to her?”

“Of course I’ve talked to her. She came down a couple times a year.”

I’d never felt the blood drain from my face before. But I did now.

“What do you mean she…” I swallowed. “Did you say your grandparents raised you? On your dad’s side?”

“No, Amber’s parents. She had me when she was fifteen and left three years later.”

“But… she said her parents were dead by the time I was born. They couldn’t have raised you,” I said.

The silence that followed felt like sap, it was so thick.

“Our grandparents died when I was twenty-three,” Daniel said. “Eight years ago.”

My breathing started to get labored. Justin’s hand came down on my shoulder and squeezed.

Alive. They were alive until eight years ago… My grandparents had been alive until I was in my twenties.

It was all happening too fast. I couldn’t process everything I was hearing. But one word kept repeating in my brain.

Lies. She’d been telling me lies.

So many. Too many to count.

I had a brother. A brother she saw, a brother she talked to. Parents she’d visited. Sisters. Nieces and nephews. And she’d hidden them from me.

She’d hidden me from them…

“I see Justine, Andrea, Liz, and Josh. Is there anyone else in our family?” I asked, almost hoping the answer was no. That the deception stopped here and there was nothing else. But there was.

“Tons,” Daniel said. “Aunt Justine’s got seven kids and a bunch of grandkids, Aunt Andrea’s got five. Our cousin Liz lives down the street. I have a daughter, Victoria. She’s two.”

I sat there while he listed off family I wasn’t supposed to have. My mother’s nieces and nephews, sisters she had told me didn’t exist.

I felt shell-shocked. Like I was floating outside my body, looking down on myself.

Maddy nodded at the phone. “Where does he live?” she whispered.

I cleared my throat. “Where do you live?” I asked, my voice small.

“Minnesota. Wakan.”

I repeated his words out loud.

“Two hours away,” Justin said.

“I’m in Minnesota too,” I told Daniel. “I’m in Minneapolis.”

“Can we meet?” he asked.

“When?”

“As soon as you can. I could even do today.”

I moved the phone away from my mouth. “He wants to meet me. Today.”

Maddy was already getting up.

“Can I bring my boyfriend and my best friend?” I asked.

“Of course. I’ll have my wife, Alexis, with me.”

We exchanged information, and half an hour later we were on our way.

I felt like I was in some weird fever dream.

On the car ride down, I tried to repeat everything Daniel had said. My mind kept folding around this new information, and I grappled for any explanation to justify why she’d do this. Maybe they were horrible people. Maybe my grandparents were abusive. Maybe she was trying to protect me, and that’s why she never told me.

As awful as it sounded, I wanted this to be true. But if it was true, if they were bad people, why leave Daniel there? Why visit them?

I couldn’t think my way out of it.

Justin drove in silence most of the way, and Maddy didn’t urge me to talk. Like they both knew I was overwhelmed and if they pushed me I’d get small.

My survival instinct wanted me to run. It wanted me to shrink and withdraw and never talk about this again. But something told me I needed to find out the truth.

The town we arrived in was picturesque. There were redbrick buildings with hanging flower baskets on the lampposts and ice cream and fudge shops on the main street and signs in the windows of the cafe and the family-run grocery store for a pumpkin-carving contest in October. All I could think was, this didn’t look like a bad place to grow up. This didn’t look like a place I needed saving from.

We pulled up to an old green Victorian with a wraparound porch decorated with pots of mums.