They Said I Was Adopted, but I Was Always the Real Daughter novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Fourteen Silent Relatives

Gael drives Inés to the lab with her father; at Sunday lunch her mother calls her a stray in front of the family, Paulina says no for the first time, and the hematologist asks if Inés is sure she was adopted.

I told Gael on Saturday morning, standing in the back of his print shop with my coat still on.

I live in the flat above his shop, and I design his flyers, menus and wedding invitations for a salary he calls generous and I call fair.

"I have leukemia," I said. "I need to be at a lab on Constitución by nine, and I need a ride, because I don't think I should drive."

Gael put down the roll of paper he was holding.

He is thirty-one, ink to the elbows, and he says about forty words a day.

"Get in the van," he said.

He didn't say he was sorry or ask if I was sure.

He just found his keys, hung the CLOSED sign on the door and opened the passenger side for me.

I almost cried then, over a van door.

My father was waiting on the lab steps with two coffees.

He gave me one, shook Gael's hand and looked at the second coffee in his own hand.

"I can't drink this before blood work," he said.

Gael took it from him.

The nurse drew my blood first, and then my father's, and then ran a swab inside each of our cheeks.

"Results by tomorrow," she said. "Oncology marks them urgent, and the hospital gets them too."

In the parking lot I asked him the thing that had been sitting in my chest all night.

"Why did Mom go white?"

My father looked at the traffic.

"Come to lunch tomorrow," he said. "Please. Everyone will be there. I'll talk to her."

"I don't want lunch. I want my vaccination booklet. The hospital needs it, and she keeps all the papers in her study."

"Then come for the booklet," he said. "And Inés, bring a plate. She'll make too much."

That was my father, offering a plate of food to a daughter with cancer.

I went on Sunday.

My mother's house was full of cars.

Fourteen relatives sat around the long table in the garden, aunts, uncles and cousins, and my mother was at the head of it, pouring juice.

Everyone knew already.

I could tell by how they looked at me, with their eyes soft and their mouths pinched.

"Inés," my mother said, as if I'd come for dessert. "Sit. There's cochinita."

"I only came for my vaccination booklet."

"Ah," she said. "That."

She set down the jug.

"Everyone, my daughter has asked me for her papers," she said, and made a small, sad sound. "Not my daughter. Forgive me. The girl we took in."

The garden went silent.

I felt my face go hot, and then cold.

"Graciela," said an aunt, very faintly.

"No, let's be honest, we're family," my mother said. "Inés has been very sick, and it's tragic. But the savings of a real family aren't a charity for every stray we were kind enough to feed. I won't have the stores' money spent on a girl who has no blood in this house."

A cousin looked down at his plate.

An uncle coughed into his napkin.

Nobody said a word, and I understood that nobody ever had.

"Mom, stop," said Paulina.

She had stood up at the other end of the table with her napkin still in her hand.

"She's my sister," Paulina said. "Anything I have is hers, and anyone who disagrees can leave my table."

"Sit down, mija."

"No."

Her voice shook, but she didn't sit.

I had never seen my sister say no to my mother in my life.

My mother stared at her for a long moment, and then she smiled at the table and said, "She's upset. Everyone eat."

Nobody ate.

"Your booklet is in my study," my mother told me, pleasant again. "I'll have it sent to you on Tuesday. Please don't come in uninvited. This is a family lunch."

"Mom," my father said from the end of the table.

"Eat, Humberto."

He picked up his fork.

I walked into the house.

I wasn't looking for anything.

I went up to the room Paulina and I used to share and stood in the doorway, shaking.

The bear was on Paulina's shelf.

It was the same brown teddy with the chewed ear, a little flat after eighteen years, sitting between her trophies and a framed photo of the two of us at a beach.

I took it down.

I didn't know why until I had it in my arms.

It was the only thing in that house that had ever been mine, even for a minute.

"You can have it," Paulina said from the door.

Her eyes were red.

"It was always yours," she said. "Mom gave it to me, but it was yours first. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Inés."

I wanted to ask her what exactly she was sorry for.

Instead I said, "Did you get tested?"

"Tomorrow," she said quickly. "I'll go tomorrow morning. First thing."

I carried the bear out through the garden past fourteen silent relatives, and I didn't look at my mother.

Gael was waiting at the curb in the van with the engine running.

I got in with the bear on my lap.

My phone rang before we reached the corner.

It was the hematologist, and her voice was careful.

"Inés, I have your father's results," she said. "He's a half match, which is exactly what we'd expect between a parent and his child."

I stared at the windshield.

"Inés," she said, "are you absolutely sure you were adopted?"

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