I am a girl but most days I feel like a question mark. People throw their looks at me. Then back at my mama sister and papa. Who are all as white as oleander. Then they look back at me. Black as a midnight orchard. And I see their puzzled faces trying to understand where I fit. People ask me where I’m from but I know they really mean
Who do you belong to?
Right now I am on the road. Somewhere just outside of St. Louis. It’s March. Our second day of driving cross-country from Baltimore to our new house in Albuquerque. I sit in the middle seat of the minivan with the windows cracked. My ashy legs spotted with sunshine. My older sister Eve in the seat behind me. Her glossy brown hair blowing in the breeze. Mama is up front with one hand on the wheel. Her violin in the passenger seat. The neck tipped down like a bottle being emptied into the sink. All of us heading west. A copper sun warming the sky. All of us singing along with the radio at the top of our lungs.
And Mama has a smile on her face this morning. Her freckled cheeks flushed red as a juneberry as she sings and rolls the front windows down so that the whole van becomes a whistle. The wind whips in and out of our throats our eyes our hair and I forget my ashy knees. I forget to miss my best friend Lena who I’ve left behind. The only other girl I know who is like me. An adopted mismatched girl. I forget to be angry at Papa for missing another family adventure. For having to fly ahead of us to start his new job with the symphony. I forget to worry about Mama and Papa always fighting these days. Mama staring wildly through windows. Hardly playing her violin at all.
For hours we drive and sing the sun into its highest point in the sky. This is where I am from! I whisper-yell between verses. And for a moment I hope we might stay like this forever. Me Mama and Eve. A tangled smear of color barreling past ghost towns and highway markers. Three tumbleweeds just blowing in the wind.