thirty-three

“I should warn you,” Max said.

“Really, there’s no such thing as a ‘normal’ family, Max. They don’t exist.”

We were nearly to Astoria. As the sun approached the horizon, the rocks off the Oregon coast reminded me of the natural formations common in the Southwest, but these rocks were in the ocean. The US Southwest had been an easy place for me to fit in wherever I parked my Airstream. I didn’t attract much attention there, and it also offered me as much solitude as I wanted. Even sharing the national parks with hikers, it was impossible not to feel at one with nature.

“My sister in particular. She’s … She’s going to try and fix you.”

“Fix me?”

Max lifted a hand from the steering wheel and reached over to tuck a lock of my white hair behind my ear. “She’s going to notice your hair isn’t dyed.”

“So? It’s fine, Max. Really.” People with keen observation skills noticed my hair wasn’t the white-blonde of some northern Europeans and that I didn’t have albinism, so they assumed I’d fried my hair by dying it.

The faint sound of thunder rumbled in the distance. Only half the sky was filled with storm clouds, but the wind was moving quickly. We pulled up at a sprawling two-story white house with a monumental Atlas cedar tree in the front yard. One of its hulking branches bore the marks of hammocks and tire swings.

“This is the house where you grew up?”

“Yup.” He grabbed our bags from the back and helped me out of the jeep. My ankle and his cold were nearly better, but not quite perfect.

“I love it.”

“Zoe?” Max hesitated before starting up the path to the house.

“What is it?”

“You know this is my mom’s birthday … ”

“Of course.”

“It feels absurd that I don’t know this, since I’ve known you for nearly a year, but … when is your birthday?”

I laughed. “You didn’t miss it. It’s January first.”

January 1 wasn’t the day I was born, but it was the birthday I liked to celebrate. I was born under the Julian calendar, where the new year began on March 25. That was decades before the current Gregorian calendar was adopted, and in a community that didn’t celebrate birthdays. My old life in Salem felt so far removed from the life I’d been living when I met Ambrose that we chose that day of new beginnings as my symbolic birthday.

“Come on inside before the rain hits,” a woman’s voice with a thick Texas accent boomed from an open front window. “I know these skies. It’s breaking any second.”

Sure enough, as we walked past the cedar tree, two fat raindrops fell onto my face.

Max’s mom came through the front door and enveloped me in a hug. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to finally meet you. I was beginning to think you were a figment of my son’s imagination. I’m so glad you could make it tonight.”

“Zoe, this is my mom, Mary Jasper. Is Mina here yet, Mom?”

“She’s inside cooking.” Mary squeezed my hands before letting go of me. She wore steel-tipped cowboy boots over leggings and a blue tunic. Her black hair was cut nearly as short as Max’s, giving plenty of room to her radiant smile and freckle-covered nose and cheeks.

“I’m so happy to meet you, Mary,” I said as she ushered us inside with the rain pelting behind us. “Happy birthday.”

The house was stuffed with the cozy furniture of family life, much of which I guessed had been there since Max’s childhood. The side table next to the door, as well as most of the free surfaces, were covered in framed photographs of an extended family.

“You two arrived just in time.” A woman who looked very much like Max, from her features to her smart style of dress, stepped out from the kitchen, wiping her hands on an apron with an illustration of a cactus. “There’s no way the storm is letting up tonight. Hi, Maxi. This must be Zoe.”

Mina shook my hand warmly, then her expression changed. “Your hair … ” she murmured.

“Don’t,” Max said.

“What?”

“Why don’t I get everyone drinks?” Max said, shooting his sister a look.

“Let me show you around the house while the kids get our food and drinks ready,” Mary said to me. She grinned as she began the tour with the staircase lined with framed photos. “I swear those two act like kids when they’re in the same room together. I almost expect them to stick out their tongues at each other. But they know not to mess with me.” She laughed and paused at a photo of a young girl at the gates of a ranch.

“Texas, 1960s?” I asked.

“Max told you about my childhood?”

I shook my head. I’d seen similar ranches during that decade when I was traveling across the country.

“That’s me at twelve or thirteen,” Mary said. “I grew up in a rural area. My dad’s family were Texan farmers and ranchers for generations, and my mom was first-generation Chinese American. I grew up learning to live off the land. I’m a crack shot. Maybe that’s what keeps the kids in line.” She laughed again. It made her look so much like the girl in the photo.

“I taught Max to shoot as well,” she added. “From the start, he hit a bull’s-eye every time. Though when he was young he refused to shoot anything besides zombies at the shooting range.”

As we proceeded up the stairway, I learned that Mary hadn’t had many Chinese friends and had no interest in learning to speak Chinese because she just wanted to fit in. When she met Max’s dad in college, she’d found another second-generation immigrant unsure where he fit in. That connection was so wonderful that it had eclipsed the fact that they didn’t share the same life goals. They’d been divorced for decades, so Mary used her maiden name, Jasper.

Her twenty-minute tour of the house was mostly focused on telling me about the people in photographs. We returned to the living room and I picked up a photo that had caught my eye when I’d first entered the house.

“This is Max and Mina as kids?” The picture was of two cute kids silhouetted against a boulder with the ocean behind them.

“Did Max tell you why I named her Mina?”

I shook my head.

“She has a birthmark on her neck.” Mary’s expression grew more serious than I’d thought her happy face capable of. “Two small marks that look like puncture wounds.”

I leaned in closer as she pointed at a shadow in the portrait.

“You know what I’m talking about,” Mary whispered, “don’t you?”

“Dracula?” Was this why Max had warned me?

“Ma!” Mina’s voice came from behind us. “Zoe, is she telling you the Dracula story? That’s not why I’m named Mina.”

Mary laughed. “She speaks the truth. That’s not why I named her Mina. She’s named Willamina after my father, William. Mina has a beautiful ring to it, doesn’t it?”

“Except for the fact that my brother is named for a warrior,” Mina said, “and I get the diminutive of a patriarch.”

“Bite your tongue,” Mary said. “You loved your grandpa.”

“He was a great man, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t a patriarch.”

Mary sighed. “She really does have a birthmark on her neck, so she loved to tell kids that story to scare them. Mina has always been the dramatic one of the pair. I grew up reading southern Gothics, and have a beautiful old copy of Dracula that Mina found on the bookshelf when she was a bit too young. She loved that it had a character with her name, so she made up that story about herself when she was little. I just borrowed the story once she was old enough for it to embarrass her.”

Mina kissed her mom’s cheek. “Ma, will you talk some sense into Max? He won’t take the zinc I offered. He’s got a cold. He’s not taking care of himself.”

“I heard that,” Max called from the kitchen. “Your collards are burning.”

Mina swore and rushed back to the kitchen. Mary and I followed.

“I guess I should expect you not to care about your own health,” Mina was saying to Max as she stirred the pot, “since you’re someone who doesn’t care about taking care of people.”

“Mina, don’t start,” Mary said. “And Max, since it’s just us, we should have rescheduled. Do I need to make you some chicken soup? And I think we have cokes in the pantry.”

“I’m fine,” Max said, handing me a glass of sparkling wine. “Truly. It’s just the tail end of a cold. Zoe has been taking good care of me.”

“Then why are you still sick?” Mina asked.

“He’s doing a lot better,” I said. “I made him homemade nettle soup the day he got sick. Along with a cayenne tea that seemed to do the trick.”

“Nettles?” Mina slipped her phone into her hand and looked up something on the screen. “I specialize in integrative medicine and I’ve never seen nettles suggested for—”

Max threw his hands in the air. “I only got sick three days ago. I’d say I’m doing pretty well.”

Mina’s brow drew together. “That’s awfully quick a recovery. What else are you taking?”

“I told you, Zoe’s been taking good care of me. She found the nettles in my backyard and used what I had on hand.”

“Food smells delicious,” I said. I breathed in the scents of various chili peppers. I’m usually good at identifying scents, but I didn’t recognize all of these.

“Mom’s favorites,” Mina said. “I hope you like spicy food.”

“I love it.”

Mina grinned and showed me the range of southern-inspired dishes sitting on the counter, from corn bread to collards, all seasoned with Chinese chili pepper sauces. We sat down to dinner at a round dining table. In the warm house, I’d taken off my sweater and was wearing a short-sleeved silk blouse. I caught Mina studying my arms as I reached for the salad.

“I’ve never seen a condition like yours,” she said.

“Mina, please—” Max said.

“What? I’m a doctor. I could help her. Zoe, have you ever seen a specialist? I’ve never heard of someone without albinism who has white hair all over.”

“A toast to Mom,” Max said. “Happy birthday.” He stood and toasted, then retrieved a small gift wrapped in newspaper.

“My favorite of your homemade teas!” Mary kissed his cheek.

Mina handed their mom a much more formally wrapped present. Inside was a cookbook holder made of copper.

I handed her a small package as well.

“You needn’t have brought me anything,” Mary said, but she looked touched. Her face lit up as she opened the kraft wrapping paper to reveal a Victorian vampire hunting kit: a small wooden box containing a stake, mallet, and crucifix.

A wide grin spread across Mary’s face. “This looks antique. Is it what I think it is?”

I nodded. “It’s over a century old, and it is.”

“Had Max told you that story about Mina already?”

“I didn’t.” Max shook his head, a baffled look on his face. “How did you know?” he whispered to me.

“I have my secrets.”