I was still wondering how to bring up the detention thing when Mom and I got home from shopping. But Mom made a beeline for her room and started digging around in the bottom of her closet. “What are you doing?” I asked.
“You’ll see.” Mom grunted. Then she pulled out a battered old shoe box. She flashed me a triumphant grin and said, “Come sit by me.”
It was actually kind of cozy there in my mom’s closet. She lifted the lid of the box. Inside was a pile of old photos.
“Um, you can burn this one,” I said, picking up a picture of me dressed as a chicken for Halloween when I was three.
“Are you kidding?” Mom chuckled. “That’s adorable!”
“Here it is!” Mom held out a photo.
“Who’s that?” I asked.
“It’s me!” Mom actually laughed. “At the sixth-grade dance.”
“You?” I stared at the photo. “Wow. It’s kinda weird how I really don’t look anything like you did in sixth grade.”
Grandma Dotty appeared in the doorway. “Why would you two look alike?” she asked.
“Mother, do you mind?” My mom pushed the closet door shut. For a minute it was dark, and I couldn’t see anything. Then Mom reached up and pulled the light chain. Maybe it was the overhead lighting, but my mother’s face looked weird.
I should’ve brought up the detention right then. Instead, I whispered, “What’s up with Grandma?”
“What do you mean?
“I mean, you’re my mom, but Grandma Dotty doesn’t seem to think we should act alike or look alike. Is she… okay?” I was starting to worry about Grandma’s mind. It was like her brain was taking longer and longer vacations from her body. I didn’t blame it—I wouldn’t want to be stuck in her head all the time either.
“Tell her, Jules,” Grandma said from behind the closet door. “She’s smart—she’ll figure it out. Tell her, or I will.”
“Mother, would you just—leave! Please!”
Mom had never yelled at Grandma before—not in front of me. This was getting seriously weird. But I heard Grandma Dotty’s footsteps leaving the room, and then Mom sighed.
“Georgia, I’ve got something I need to tell you,” she said, looking down at the funky sixth-grade photo of herself. “But I don’t know how to say it.” She sounded so freaked out that I thought she was getting ready to tell me all about the birds and the bees. To which I can only say:
YUCK.
“Um—don’t worry, Mom. I learned all about that stuff in health class last year,” I said.
Mom chewed her lip. “No, Georgia…” She took my hand and pressed my fingers really gently. “Sweetheart, I don’t know how to say this, so I’m just going to say it….”
Sorry. That transcript may not be entirely right. My brain sort of short-circuited after the word “adopted.”
But it made sense. It explained everything. Why I didn’t look like Mom. Why I didn’t act like Rafe.
Grandma Dotty’s brain wasn’t being eaten by worms.
My life was.