Hummingbird Heart (16 page)

Toni nodded and picked up our drinks. “See? Good thing I got to-go cups.”

I followed her out the door and into the cold drizzling rain. She handed me my cup, and we started to walk. “Thanks,” I said. “Too many people in there.”

“So, did your mom say why?”

“Why she never told him? Or why she lied to me about it?” I shook my head. “No to both. She just said that when she realized she was pregnant, he was already with someone else—the woman he's married to now—and so she never bothered to tell him.”

“Weird. I mean, I can see if she'd decided to have an abortion, but to have the baby and not tell him?” She frowned. “So how did he find out about you?”

“I don't know.” I wasn't going to ask Mom either. I didn't trust anything she told me. “I'll ask Mark,” I said.

“Do you have plans to see him again?”

“Not exactly.” I looked at her. “What are you doing tonight?”

Toni stopped walking, turned to me and grinned. “You kidding? I'm coming with you.”

S
even
T
een

At dinner, Mom told me I'd have to miss homeroom the next day. I had an appointment in the morning for a blood test, to find out whether I might be able to be a donor for Casey.

I needed to talk to Toni and figure out how we were going to find Mark tonight. I was too restless to sit or read or do homework. I'd tried calling her, but her phone went straight to voice mail. No doubt she was talking to Finn. I stared at the phone for a few minutes, wondering what to do.

Scott and my mother were downstairs, and I didn't want to be around them. And there was nowhere else to go. I wanted to throw something—hurl something heavy right out the window. And scream. I felt as if my insides were boiling: a bubbling seething poisonous mess. I dug my nails into the palms of my hands as hard as I could and dropped down onto my bed.
Don't freak out
, I told myself.
Get a grip
. I lay on my back and studied the dead flies in my ceiling light. Five of them. Ugh.

There was a knock at my door. “What?”

The door opened a crack, and Karma poked her face in. “Can I come in?”

I sat up, both annoyed and relieved at the distraction. “Yeah.”

She inched inside the door and stood there, shifting her weight from one foot to the other.

“What's wrong?” I crossed my legs and leaned toward her. “Are you okay?”

She shrugged. “I was just wondering. You know what you said this morning? About helping Mark's kid?”

“Uh-huh. What about it?”

“I don't know. Just, you know, I realized something. You have a real sister now.”

“She's not really my sister,” I said quickly, “and Mark's not really my father. He's just some guy who happens to share some of the same
DNA
as me. That's all.”

She didn't say anything.

I pulled a face. “It's like, what if you found out that your mom had had another kid and given it up for adoption or something? Or that your dad had other kids? They wouldn't really be your family.”

“My dad might have,” Karma said. “If I had brothers or sisters, I think I'd want to know.”

“Would you?”

“Yeah. Definitely I would. They'd be family, wouldn't they?
Real
family.”

“We're real family.” I knew what she meant though.

“Yeah, I know. Still, I think you're lucky to meet your father. Even though, you know…”

“Even though he just wants my bone marrow.”

“Yeah.”

I didn't say anything for a minute. Karma had never met her dad; she didn't even know who he was. Until recently, it had been something we'd had in common.

“So are you going to meet her?” Karma asked. “If you do, can I come too?”

“No and no.”

“Aren't you even curious?”

Karma, of course, was curious about absolutely everything—including things that were none of her business. I ignored the question. “I suppose Scott's still downstairs.”

“Yeah. How come you don't like him?”

“How come you do?”

“He's nice. He asks questions about school and friends and my bike, all kinds of stuff. And he actually listens.”

“Yeah, because he's taken all those social-worker classes on listening skills.”

“It's not fake listening,” Karma said.

“Sure it is.”

“It's not.” Karma's voice was hard-edged. “I've talked to lots of social workers, believe me.”

I was silent for a moment. We never talked much about Karma's life before she came to live with us. When she first came, I was so freaked out by the idea that her mom had died that I could hardly speak to her at all. I couldn't possibly talk about her mom, and talking about anything else had felt kind of inappropriately trivial. Insensitive. Now too much time had passed and it seemed strange to bring it up. Plus, I was superstitious about discussing death. My mom's mother had died in a car accident when my mom was my age. Just the thought made me anxious. “Okay,” I said at last. “So Scott's really listening. I don't talk to him, so how would I know?”

“I think Amanda's going to break up with him,” Karma said. “I wish she wouldn't though.”

“He's not her type.”

“He is too.” She looked as if she might cry.

My cell phone rang and I pounced on it. “Hello?”

“Hey. It's me.”

“Toni?” I made a face at Karma and gestured toward the door. Karma hesitated for a moment, no doubt hoping to hear something interesting. Finally she left, banging the door closed behind her.

“Sorry, I've been on the phone. My aunt called.”

Not Finn then. “So can you get your mom's car?”

“Yup. Is your mom going to let you go?”

“I haven't actually asked.”

She laughed. “Okay. Sure. See you soon.”

Mom and Scott were sitting in the living room, talking in low, intense voices. Maybe Karma was right. The tone of the conversation did have that breaking-up feel to it. I'd seen it plenty of times before.

“Mom?”

She looked irritated. “What is it?”

“I'm going out with Toni, okay? Just for a bit.”

“Dylan, it's…” She broke off to look at her watch. “It's almost nine. A bit late to be going out.”

A hard ball of anger was lodging itself in my chest, right in the hollow between my collarbones. “I need to talk to someone, Mom. And apparently you're busy.”

She stood up. “Don't be like that. If you want to talk to me, you know that all you have to do is say so.”

I shrugged. For no good reason, I was suddenly fighting tears. “Whatever.”

“Amanda.” Scott hesitated. “If you want me to leave…”

She shook her head. “I don't want you to leave.”

I jumped in. “So can I go or what?”

Mom hesitated. “Yes. Okay. But don't be late. Tomorrow—”

I cut her off. “Don't worry. I'm hardly going to forget about tomorrow.”

Toni picked me up in her mom's Honda. Because she had a December birthday, her parents had started her in kindergarten a year late so she wouldn't always be the youngest. So she'd always been the oldest in our grade instead. This year, she'd been the first to get her driver's license, which had given her a lot of popularity points. I had decided never to get a license, on principle, but there were times—like now, when it was dark and cold and pouring rain—that cycling wasn't all that appealing.

The car was warm, heat blasting. Some electronic-sounding music I didn't recognize was playing on the car stereo, and Toni turned down the volume as I got in. “Do you know for sure that he's still at the hotel?” she asked.

“He has to be,” I said. “His wife and Casey are flying out on Thursday.”

She raised one eyebrow. “Seriously? Are you going to meet her?”

I shook my head. “I just want some answers, that's all. I don't want a whole new family.”

“What does Karma think about it all? You having another sister, I mean?”

“I don't know. She says she'd be curious, if it was her.”

Toni nodded. “Me too.”

Why did everyone seem to think I should meet her? “Well, not me,” I said shortly. After a couple of minutes, Toni turned the volume back up. I leaned my head against the window and watched streetlights flash past as we drove through downtown. Down by the harbor, the buildings were all lit up, fairy-tale pretty against the dark sky. “She might not make it,” I said. “Casey, I mean. She's pretty sick.”

Toni didn't say anything right away. She took a couple of turns, pulled into a parking spot at the side of the street across from the hotel, turned off the engine and shifted in her seat to face me. “Is that why you don't want to meet her?”

My throat ached with holding back tears. “Maybe. I don't know.”

She held my gaze for a long moment. “Remember when we used to say we were going to live forever? That by the time we were old, science would have found a cure for death?”

I gave a startled laugh. “Of course. I really believed it too.”

“I know you did.”

“Didn't you?”

She shook her head. “I don't think so. Not really.”

“I guess it was easier to believe than the alternative. Death is so
weird
.” I wondered if she had ever believed that we'd live together and rescue stray dogs, or if she'd just been pretending about that too.

“Yeah. Well, we were just kids. We didn't know anything.” Toni unbuckled her seat belt. “Come on. Let's go get you some answers.”

The front desk clerk called up to Mark's room and told us he'd be right down.

“You want me to stay?” Toni whispered.

I nodded. “Yeah. If you don't mind.”

“Are you kidding? I'm dying of curiosity.” She watched the elevator doors. “I can't believe I'm actually going to meet your father. Does he look like you?”

“Kind of. I don't know. Well, you'll see.” I wiped my hands on my jeans and wondered where to start. Did I owe him an apology? I'd been kind of a bitch last time I saw him, all snarky about him making small talk and then taking off when he told me about Casey.