seven

…nothing remained but loneliness and grief
(LOUISA MAY ALCOTT, LITTLE WOMEN)

Brenna stares at her planner, numbly processing the schoolwork that is piling up: a math quiz to study for, three chapters to read for biology, an essay to write for English. She also has the new-drivers’ manual to study. She slumps back in her chair, unable to tackle any of it.

After a few moments she slides her laptop in front of her. Signing into Facebook, she begins to compose yet another message to Angie.

Hi again,

I’ve just finished reading the journal that Kia wrote when she was expecting me. In it she said she was going to visit me after I was adopted. Can you tell me why she never did?

She stares at what she’s written and then deletes it. Part of her really doesn’t want to know the answer.

Swiveling her chair around, she stares at her bed. It looks so inviting. Maybe a short nap. Her aunt had told her it was okay to nap, that sometimes people sleep more when they’re sad.

Her phone rings. Georgialee again. She can’t avoid her forever.

“Hey, Georgialee.” She can hear the lack of enthusiasm in her own voice.

“Brenna! What’s going on? How come you haven’t been answering my calls?”

A bunch of lame excuses come to Brenna’s mind, but she doesn’t say anything.

“Okay, you’re mad at me. I can be insensitive. I get it. Let’s get together next Saturday and take Bentley for a long walk, and we’ll talk.”

Brenna almost smiles. It’s astonishing to hear Georgialee admit to being insensitive. “I have my volunteer shift on Saturday.”

“Are you still doing that? I thought we agreed that you already had more than enough volunteer hours.”

“We didn’t agree on anything. You thought I should quit.”

Georgialee is quiet for a moment. “Is it that guy…what’s his name? Ryan? Is that why you keep going up there?”

Brenna shakes her head. How can she explain that being on the mountain helps her keep her mom’s spirit alive—in a good way, as opposed to a sad way, as it was the rest of the time? Ryan being there? That was just a bonus. “No.”

“Okay, how about Sunday afternoon then?”

“Can we make it Sunday morning?”

“No, my group has a run. What are you doing in the afternoon?”

Brenna considers lying. If she mentions the hike, Georgialee will know it is with Ryan, and then there’ll be more questions, but she can’t come up with anything else. “I’m hiking.”

“Hiking?”

“The Grouse Grind.”

“Again? With that same guy?”

“Uh-huh. I told you I was going to keep doing it. He’s trying to make a Grinder out of me.”

“Brenna, you’re keeping secrets from me!”

“It’s not a secret. It’s just something that has…evolved.”

“Right.”

Brenna knows Georgialee doesn’t buy it, but she doesn’t have the energy to argue with her. “Okay, then,” she says, “how ’bout one day right after school? We won’t have as much time, but at least we’d be together.”

Brenna can hear Georgialee turning the pages in her planner. “Hmm, I’ve got soccer practice Monday, field hockey Tuesday. What about Wednesday?”

“I’m hiking that day too.”

“Are you kidding me?”

Brenna doesn’t respond. She can’t think of anything to say.

“There’s got to be more to this than you’re telling me, Brenna.”

“There’s not, really.”

“Okay, how about Thursday, or are you hiking then too?”

“Thursday works,” Brenna says, ignoring the sarcasm.

“Good.” Georgialee’s voice softens. There’s a long pause and then she says, “Bentley misses you, Brenna.”

Brenna smiles. She knows Georgialee isn’t just talking about the dog. “I miss him too. Give him a hug from me.”

“I will, and I’ll see you at school tomorrow.”

“Yep.” Brenna ends the call, knowing she may get glimpses of Georgialee at school, but the reality is they aren’t in any of the same classes this year, and Georgialee belongs to so many clubs that she’s usually attending meetings during the lunch hour.

Brenna falls onto her bed and pulls a blanket across her shoulders. She presses the soft fabric to her face. She used to be busy at school too. She’d been a founding member of the Social Justice Club. She’d also been one of the grade reps on the student council, but when her mom got sick she’d pulled away from these groups and hadn’t found the energy or passion to resume. No one was pushing her to get involved again either. Were they just giving her space, or did they not like being around her anymore—the-girl-whose-mom-died-of-breast-cancer? She must be such a downer.

Sept. 8

So much work…so little energy.

Will I ever go back to being “me”?

Maybe I am not “me” anymore.

I am a new person. A sad, heavy, numb person.

I don’t like this new me.

Brenna reads her journal entry and realizes that it sounds like something Kia would have written. Can you inherit your biological mother’s writing style?

She stares at the poster hanging on her wall. The round brown eyes of a baby orangutan stare back at her. She’d hung the poster as a reminder of the dream trip she and her mom had planned, a trip to Borneo to visit the Matang Wildlife Centre, where they wanted to volunteer with the orangutan project. Another dream that would never come true.

“Are you going to the fall dance?” Naysa asks, peering into the fridge.

Brenna finishes her bowl of cereal. “I don’t know. I’m not sure I’m really into it this year. But you should go.”

“My friends are all going,” Naysa says. “That’s all they talk about. What they’re going to wear. Who they want to dance with.”

And probably how to get drunk without getting caught, Brenna thinks, remembering her own eighth-grade year. “I’m hiking after school today, so I won’t be here when you get home.”

“Who with?” Naysa asks.

“Ryan. The trammie.”

Naysa gives her a meaningful glance.

“No, no. We just hike. That’s it,” Brenna says, answering her sister’s unspoken question.

Naysa pours herself a tall glass of chocolate milk.

“You want to come along?” Brenna asks.

Naysa frowns. “Are you kidding me? I did the Grind once. That was enough.”

Brenna thinks about telling her how the agony of the hike helps her forget the other kind of pain but decides not to. It’s something you have to discover on your own. And besides, her love for the mountain and the wildlife on it is something she shared with her mom—it isn’t Naysa’s thing.

“I’ll probably hang out with Amber after school,” Naysa says.

“Who’s Amber?”

“A girl I met in math. She seems nice. She went to Lynnmour,” she adds.

“What about Sasha and Lauren?” Brenna asks. “How come I never see them around here anymore?”

Naysa shrugs and takes a last swallow of her chocolate milk. She places her glass in the sink with a bang.

Brenna glances at her and wonders again if Naysa’s old friends are finding it hard to relate to her now that her mom has died. “Dinner will probably be a little late,” she says. “Maybe you could get it started? I’ll take something out of the freezer.”

Naysa doesn’t answer, but Brenna can see the frown that crosses her face as she leaves the kitchen.

Brenna doesn’t blame her for being cranky. Starting dinner was something their mother always did, while they shared cleanup duties with their dad. Now they do both.

“So the last time we were hiking, you mentioned something about an aunt contacting you on Facebook.”

It is a clear fall day. They had spent the first part of the hike catching up on each other’s week.

“Yeah, her name’s Angie. She messaged me out of the blue. It was so random.”

“Really? Something must have prompted it.”

Brenna takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “She’d run into the minister who officiated at my mom’s service. He’d been a friend of my birth mom. He told her my mom had died.” Her voice is barely audible, and she feels her energy sag as she says the words. It hasn’t gotten any easier. “She wanted to say she was sorry.”

“Are you going to stay in touch?” Ryan’s voice is gentle.

Brenna doesn’t answer for a moment. She’s suddenly aware of the bird sounds coming from the canopy of trees above them. The air is cooler today, and the scent of the forest is earthy. “I don’t know,” she says finally. “We’ve exchanged a few messages, but…” She can’t finish the sentence.

Ryan glances back at her but keeps climbing. “I guess it’s complicated,” he says. “I know all about complicated.”

Something about Ryan’s words makes Brenna feel safe enough to talk about what she hasn’t yet been able to share with anyone else. “I really want to ask her about Kia, my biological mom, but something stops me every time I start to message her. Maybe I’m afraid of what I’ll find out.”

“How much do you already know?” Ryan asks. He is slowing the pace a little, to Brenna’s relief.

“I know she was seventeen when she had me. She didn’t want to put me up for adoption but felt she had to. She chose my adoptive parents for me.”

“She did a good job of that,” Ryan says. “Well, your mom anyway. I don’t know your dad.”

“Yeah, she did. But I wonder how she’d feel if she knew my mom had died while I was still young. Maybe she does know now.”

Ryan stops to pull a granola bar out of his pack. He passes it to her, and she breaks a chunk off and pops it in her mouth before passing it back.

“I can imagine you’d be curious about your other family, but you run the risk of…of what is it they say? Opening a can of worms?”

“Worms? You’re calling my relatives worms?” She smiles at him.

“You know what I mean.”

“My biological mom kept a journal while she was expecting me. After I was born she gave it to my mom and dad to give to me when they felt I was ready to read it.”

He tilts his head. “And?”

“And I just finished reading it.”

“Oh.” He breaks off another piece of the granola bar and passes it back to her.

She takes it and feels him studying her face. “It was really bizarre, reading about how it felt to be expecting me.”

“Yeah, I can imagine.”

“She sounded like a pretty cool person though.”

“That doesn’t surprise me. Look at what she produced.” He smiles down at her.

“Very funny.”

“I wasn’t trying to be funny.”

Brenna rolls her eyes but feels the heat in her cheeks, and not just from the exertion of the hike. They start back up the steep trail with Brenna following Ryan again. “In the journal,” she says, “Kia said she was going to visit me. I don’t know that she ever did. And she used to send me greeting cards on special occasions, but then she stopped. I’d like to know why.”

“I’m sure she has her reasons.”

“I’d like to know what those reasons are.”

“Don’t forget about that can of worms.”

They’ve arrived at the ¼ mark sign on the trail. Ryan reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone. “Go stand by the sign,” he says. “I want to take your picture.”

“No way,” she says. “I’m all sweaty.”

“You look good when you’re sweaty,” he says. “Get over there.”

“You get in the picture too,” a passing hiker says to Ryan.

“Thanks.” Ryan hands the stranger his phone. He grabs Brenna by the arm and pulls her over to the marker.

“Say cheese,” the stranger says, holding the phone up to take the picture.

In that second Ryan flings his arm around Brenna and pulls her in close. She smiles in surprise. The hiker clicks the button and looks into the small screen. “Good one,” he says and hands the phone back to Ryan.

Ryan checks it and smiles. He hands the phone to Brenna. She glances at the picture and tries not to show how relieved she is that she actually looks okay in it.

“Thanks,” Ryan says to the hiker before he strides away.

“Will you text it to me?” Brenna asks.

“Not a chance. You didn’t want your picture taken, so why should I send you a copy?” He tucks the phone back into his pocket.

“What?” Brenna smacks his arm in mock fury.

He laughs and pulls the phone back out. “Okay, what’s your cell number?”

Once the picture is sent, they continue up the trail. The conversation about Kia is dropped, but Brenna notices that she feels lighter simply from having shared her thoughts with someone.

“Dad, did Kia ever come to visit me when I was a baby?”

Brenna tries to maintain a casual tone as she stacks her plate in the dishwasher, but she’s ultra aware of her father’s body language as he scrapes out the bottom of a casserole dish.

“Yeah,” he says. “She did. Most weekends for the first year she would come by to see you.”

“Just for a year?” She hasn’t noticed anything unusual in his tone or behavior.

“She went away to school after that. Then, for a few years, she’d come by to see you when she was home for holidays or on summer break.”

“Oh.”

Her dad drapes the tea towel over his shoulder as he pulls out the stopper in the bottom of the sink. The water goes down the drain with a swoosh. He turns to lean against the counter, folds his arms across his chest and looks at Brenna. “I remember the day she arrived to see you when you were about three. She was really excited, as always, but that year you were shy with her. You hid behind your mom’s legs and refused to go on the outing Kia had planned.”

Brenna sinks onto a kitchen chair.

“You okay?” her dad asks.

“Yeah, my legs are aching from the hike,” she says, but that’s not the only reason she had to sit down.

“I think that was very hard for Kia,” he continues. “She came by less frequently after that, and you continued to be shy with her. Mind you, you were shy with most people in those days.” He regards his daughter thoughtfully. “Have you finished reading her journal?”

She nods.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

He scans her face again before squeezing her arm. “I have some office work to catch up on,” he says, leaving the kitchen.

She hears him walk down the hall and into his office. He shuts the door behind him.

Sept. 11

No wonder she quit visiting.

I rejected her.

I had it backward.

I thought she’d rejected me.

Hi, Angie,

I’ve noticed that you haven’t mentioned Kia, and I’m wondering why. Can you tell me where she is and how she’s doing? Thanks.

Brenna hits Send before she can delete the message again.