The Christmas Orphans Club(71)

“I don’t have a license,” I offer. I let it lapse after four years in the city. It seemed like too much of a hassle to go to the DMV for a license I wasn’t planning to use for anything other than getting into bars, and I could use my passport for that. Until tonight, it’s never been an issue.

No one looks at Finn.

“Fine, I’ll do it,” Priya says. Theo tosses her the keys and she fumbles them. They skid underneath the car, and she has to get on her hands and knees on the asphalt to retrieve them. Not a fortuitous omen for the drive ahead.

In the car, Priya looks like a child, dwarfed by the massive red leather driver’s seat. She adjusts it as far forward as it will go before turning the key in the ignition. When she does, “I Did It All for the Nookie” blares from the speakers at full volume. I jab at the buttons on the dashboard trying to get it to stop. Not the time, Fred Durst.



* * *



? ? ?

?The Hummer roars to the curb in front of Finn’s childhood home just after eleven. “You have arrived at your destination,” the GPS lady announces.

Priya slams the breaks and the car jerks forward before settling to a stop on the quiet cul-de-sac. Once in park, Priya sighs with relief. Her shoulders ease down from where they’ve been hunched up by her ears for the forty-five-minute drive on a five-lane highway to Peachtree City, a leafy suburb south of Atlanta.

I stare out the passenger window at the house. I’ve never pictured what kind of house Finn grew up in. I always thought of us as the same—lacking in parents, lacking a home, rootless—but the stately two-story white brick colonial in front of us is proof that Finn does have a family. And they rejected him. My hands ball into fists in my lap as I survey the house. There’s a light on in the front room.

“I don’t know if I can go in,” Finn says from the back seat. His voice is shaky. “Maybe this was a mistake.”

“Do you want me to make a loop around the neighborhood while you decide?” Priya offers. Her shoulders creep up at the prospect of turning the car back on.

“Can we just sit here for a minute?” Finn asks.

“We can sit here all night if you want,” Theo offers. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”





twenty


    Finn



Christmas #10, 2017

I wake with my head on Theo’s shoulder. There’s a crusted track of drool down my chin and my neck screams from sleeping at a weird angle.

My phone says it’s 6:04. I didn’t mean to stay outside all night; I only wanted a few minutes to compose myself, because once I go inside it will be real. My father will be dead, and I’ll be face-to-face with my mother for the first time in nine years.

I open and close the car door as gently as I can, so I don’t wake anyone. Up front, Priya is reclined in the driver’s seat with her wrinkled purple coat draped over herself like a blanket, while Hannah’s face is squished against the passenger window. Gratitude surges through me. No matter what happens inside, these people, the ones sleeping uncomfortably in this monstrosity of a car, are my real family.

For a moment, I stare at the house. To the right of the walkway is the happy willow. Willow trees only weep near water, so ours stands tall and broad, casting the front of the house in a welcome shade from Georgia’s sweltering sun. The tree was always base when I played tag with the other neighborhood kids. It’s taller since I left.

At the door, I freeze. I don’t have a key—mine was abandoned in a junk drawer two apartments ago. I didn’t think to keep it because I never expected to come back. It’s not rational, but I never considered the possibility my dad could die. I assumed he might live forever; the bad guys always do. When I lived here, he ran five miles every weekday morning, even in the hottest part of summer, and hadn’t touched bread since the Atkin’s craze in the nineties.

I don’t want to wake anyone with the bell, so I try the doorknob. To my surprise, it’s unlocked. I step into the foyer and breathe in the smell of Pine Sol and the white gardenia candles my mother favors. It smells like home.

“Finn, is that you?” my mother calls from closer than I expected, not upstairs in her bedroom. She’s in the living room, the one we only use for company, lying on the slipcovered white couch underneath a hand-crocheted blanket made by her own mother, who died when I was eleven. My grandmother’s was the first and only funeral I’ve ever been to. Until now, I guess.

“Hi. It’s me.” I stand in the doorway to the living room surveying my mother. Her hair has started to go gray, I notice. I’m surprised she doesn’t color it. She always cared so much about appearances. I wonder if I should give her a hug. I realize, too late, that when Amanda called with the news it wasn’t accompanied by an invitation. I just showed up. Maybe my mother doesn’t want me here.

At the sight of me, tears start streaming down her cheeks. I don’t know the protocol for this situation. “I’m sorry about Dad,” I say. This loss feels more hers than mine.

“I’m not crying about your father. It still doesn’t feel real. I’m crying because you’re finally home where you belong. Now come here.” She beckons me to the couch. “I need to hug my boy.”

I sit down next to her, and she wraps me in her arms, my head automatically nestles into her shoulder. I can smell her Jo Malone perfume, the same kind she’s always worn.