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As I left Ellie’s apartment, she gave me the sort of hug that could either mark a permanent separation or a temporary one of an undetermined length. Either way, it was some sort of goodbye. It was some sort of meaningful parting, even if the exact meaning was to be determined. That detail was the sort of thing only time could give us. There was no way to peek behind the figurative curtain, no reason to rush into it, and no need to work myself up over it.
I was still inclined to, though. There was something alluring about falling into my fears and letting them swallow me up. It hurt, but I could survive it. I always had. This was the sort of thing I had always done. It was familiar. It was the strategy that had seen me through so much of my life thus far. But as I watched Ellie’s door shut for what could have been the final time, I realized how terrible of a companion it really was. I would have rather had her, Chris, Professor Evory, and literally anyone than my panic, even if it wasn’t obvious. Unfortunately, though, ships sailed while I waited at the port to decide what I was going to do. Things happened. Circumstances changed. And they weren’t all recoverable.
As I tried to fight that realization, I lingered at Ellie’s doorstep for a moment too long. It gave the grief a chance to catch me. Once it did, it pulled me beneath the surface just as the currents of the river had done so many years before. This time, no one was coming to get me, but in theory, I could save myself. I could pull myself out of the water. I just didn’t know how to or what I was even grieving for.
It still hurt though. It might have been a different type of drowning and a different type of grief, but my word, it was still an excruciating pain.
Eventually, I pulled myself away. I shook my head as I wandered back down the hallway to her building’s old stairwell with its creaking steps and chipped paint on the walls. The ominous atmosphere, the foreboding sense of doom and despair and lost time that lingered in the stairwell offered to distract my mind from that hug and all its ambiguity. After all, the ambiguity wasn’t worth thinking about. It was inevitable given our circumstances. It meant nothing. Or it could have meant everything. We would have to see what came next as it came to us. But I knew our friendship would never be what it was.
And I hated that. I hated the undefined loss and all the uncertainty that surrounded it. It was a space in which my dread and fear could grow unabated. I dreaded not seeing Ellie’s smile or hearing her laugh. I dreaded the self-hatred that would come from feeling like I had betrayed her or her trust in any number of ways. It was growing, but it was small enough that I could still ignore it for a while. But that left me with just the unmistakable sadness that comes with something you cherish breaking apart in front of your eyes.
Even still, I left Ellie’s building without a single complaint. Even when the cold November air struck me across the face, I did not react. I went downstairs to find my car parked out front where I had left it, and miraculously, it was unticketed despite my losing the battle to get the parking meter to accept my money. But there was no triumph in that. It was just a reminder of how quick that moment–that potential goodbye–had been, despite the impact it would forever have on me.
Slowly, I climbed in my car and put my phone in the cup holder. I felt pretty confident I knew the way back to Dustford’s border, which I thought of as being within reach of Chris if I needed a rescue. But having my phone at hand for some sort of emergency GPS would be wise. For that, though, it would need to be charged, so I took out the charging cable from my purse and hooked it up to my dashboard.
But as I was about to plug the cord into my phone, its screen shifted. The factory default crystal screen disappeared and the dark, void of a call screen came up instead. The bright white text that held the phone number shined out from the black void. The number was not one I had in my contact list with a name attached to the entry, so it was just the series of numbers shining out at me.
The area code was 401. That was the area code for the state of Rhode Island.
My heart stopped and fell through the floor of my car. I could feel it land on the rough concrete below. It did not shatter on impact, however. It remained whole, pounding where it lay despite the chill picking at it.
I turned to the building beside me. I thought about running back inside and getting Ellie. I thought about fleeing to her side and asking for her help through this moment. But that wasn’t an option anymore. Not after that hug and whatever it meant.
So I stayed firmly seated in the car as my mind raced. At first, I could only take a deep breath in an attempt to steady myself. Frankly, I didn’t want to answer the call. Or rather, I had my doubts about answering. They were familiar ones. The old fears never really went anywhere. They couldn’t be dispelled by a hospital pep talk or a traffic chastisement but had retreated from view. They were too deeply rooted in all that I was to be eradicated so easily. In fact, maybe, they would always be there. Maybe they would always linger.
But in so many ways, my thoughts or preferences didn’t matter. There was some other imperative to consider, other factors that were more relevant in this conversation than the storm happening in my mind. I couldn’t see many of them, but of those I could see, one stood out. Lynette had been putting off this call for months. There had to be a reason or fears of her own that she was just as incapable of conquering as I had been.
We were more alike than we were different. Not just because we were sisters but because we were humans.
That did mean, though, that I had to answer the call. There was no guarantee she would call again.
Before I could second guess myself, I hit the accept button and put the phone to my ear. But once I did so, there was only silence on the other end.
“Hello?” I said.
My greeting was simple. It relied on a word that seemed little more than a placeholder, but for my purposes, it worked fine.
I heard the other person take a deep breath before whispering, “Hi.”
Her voice was uneasy, shaky. If the word were not so short, it might have been beyond her reach.
“I...” She sighed and reconsidered her approach. “My name is Lynette, and I was looking for someone named Mia?”
My heart leapt up from the asphalt below my car just to twist violently in my chest, but my lungs did not participate in its mutiny. They were fine. They were content. They could breathe.
“Speaking,” I replied.
What does it mean to hear your sister’s voice for the first time? I suppose that is something almost everyone else who has a sister gets to take for granted, but there is a power to the moment. There is a rush of emotion that hits you. It’s a blend of so many different feelings that you can’t pick out just one. But with so much happening, with so many things attacking you all at once, you find some sense of calm through it all. It didn’t feel like a natural calm, though. It felt like my mind was somewhere else, some distant plane of existence left to observe my body from the right angle. Said body sat in the car, in silence, giving Lynette a chance to say whatever it was she needed to say.
“So I know this is going to sound crazy,” she said. “But was your father’s name Will Vogel?”
After each word she paused to pick the next. Her selection was careful and measured. But beneath that selection process rested an urge to just push through, to charge ahead and to get to the other side of this hardship. I knew that all too well.
“Yeah,” I said.
I could scarcely believe I was saying that, though. I could scarcely believe I was doing anything at all. But for once, I found the words I was looking for and let them flow forth.
I went on, “It was. He was, I should say, but he died some time ago. But–and this is also a question that’s going to sound crazy–but I was expecting or hoping for a call from someone who might have recently found out that she was my sister. And well, it’s a call I was looking forward to, so I have to ask, is that your biological father’s name too?”
She paused. The entire world seemed to stop and wait with me for her answer.
“Yeah.”
“Hi Sis.”