Page 56 of Snow Creek

She’s always thinking of others.

Twenty-Five

I take the tape recorder with the next tape to bed. I’m too tired to sit at the kitchen table. Its proximity to my room-temp wine hasn’t been helping matters. I undress and put on my Portland State University T-shirt. I haven’t donned it for quite some time, and I wonder if my subconscious is working on everything I do.

Portland State University is where I was treated by Dr. Albright, of course. The shirt is pulling me back there in its own way.

I don’t make friends because I was trained not to trust people.

I don’t cook because my mother used me like a slave.

I don’t even own a TV because, when I did, certain things triggered me a little. All right, a lot. Hair dye, for one. A KitKat candy bar commercial. It’s the little things that add up. Those things treat my body like a voodoo doll, poking me until I cry out.

Silently, of course.

I know the work that I do is a kind of life-long atonement for the sum of what I did. Who I really am.

The poison that circulates in my blood.

I lay my head on the pillow and look around; my eyes scrape past the recorder. The room is pale blue, kind of a soothing robin’s egg hue. The ceiling is high and every time I look up, I make a mental note to get a broom and stepladder, so I can swipe away the cobwebs. On my dresser there are two pictures of my brother, one taken at our aunt’s place in Idaho. Another when he graduated from high school. On the back is a note that was meant to wound me.

Rylee, I’m graduating today. You are not here (as always). My foster parents are nice people, but they don’t replace my family. Thanks for taking all of that away from me.

Hayden

I don’t even have to pop the photograph from the frame to read it anymore. I’ve memorized every single word of it.

He hates me.

I don’t doubt that I deserve it.

And still I check my email twice a day to see if he’s written back.

On the wall next to the door with its vintage crystal knob is a painting of a sailboat. It came with the place. Sometimes I imagine myself on that boat, sailing away, never to return.

I press Play and I turn off the light next to my bed. I lie there, like a child listening to a scary story.My story.

Dr. Albright starts things off with a reminder that she is on this journey with me. That I’m strong and that I’m on a pathway to healing. I remember wanting to believe her so much, but also thinking it was complete bullshit. That I’d never be fully healed. She tells me to close my eyes and bring her with me. Hearing her voice so full of concern makes me think of the Wheaton kids and how alone they must be feeling. How huge their tragedy is and how it will forever be etched on their minds. How I hope they will find someone like Karen Albright to help them move through life.

Dr. A: Tell me about finding Aunt Ginger.

Me: It was flat-out weird. I’d never even heard of her and Hayden and I were about to knock on her door. I didn’t know how we’d feel. How she would feel. Or even if she knew about me and Hayden. So much of our lives had been compartmentalized. I remember standing outside, looking at her gray and blue two-story. It was tucked into the base of a ridge down from the mountains. It was old. But in decent repair. I’d seen an episode ofDr. Philin which some kids went looking for their birth parents only to find out they were living in a rusted-out trailer on some riverbank somewhere. The kids on the show had decided that their adoptive parents weren’t so bad after all.

Dr. A: It’s good to be grateful for what you have.

Me: I am alive. And I’m grateful for that. (pause) I remember when she opened the door, how much she looked like me and my mom. She was about my height. Her hair was long, not Mormon-sister-wife long, but close. I remember how she reacted when I told her who we were.

Dr. A: Go on, Rylee. What did she do?

Me: She looked nervous. Scared. Anxious. Her light blue eyes narrowed, and I watched her eyelids flutter. She looked around the street, her yard, the driveway, and told us to hurry inside. The first thing she asked was where her sister was. I told her, “He’s got her.” And then she did something weird.

Dr. A: Weird? How so?

Me: It was something no one other than my parents had ever done. She hugged me. I didn’t know her. But I just started crying. I mean, tears just streaming down my face. Hayden too. In fact, all three of us just sobbed. I melt into her arms and I cry harder than I ever have since the ordeal began. I can cry loudly because I feel that someone cares and that even though I’m in a stranger’s place, I’m with family. It wasn’t a reunion of joy, but something completely different. We are a sobbing mass of pain, loss and fear.

I tell Dr. Albright how strange it was to hear this newfound aunt call our mother Courtney.Her real name.Not the one engraved on the dog tags that I wore around my neck. My mother’s name wasn’t Ginger. Ginger was my aunt. What’s more, I was stunned by her reaction to us appearing on her doorstep.She wasn’t shocked.

Me: But I was. Hayden and I had been kept away from her for our entire lives and she went along with it. I wanted to be kind. I wanted to think that all of that had been for our own good, but I wasn’t sure. The betrayal was so deep, and apparently, shared. And then she dropped the bomb. She said, “The last time I saw your mother—last Labor Day—she told me that she thought you’d have to move again soon. She thought he was closing in on her. I told her that she was paranoid, you know, more paranoid than cautious. I told her to stay put. I told her that his threats would never evolve into reality. I…” Aunt Ginger was shaking as she spoke. I didn’t want to confront her right then, but I thought, really? Really? Did she see our mother last Labor Day? Did this aunt who we never knew existed up until twenty-four hours ago stay in touch with our mother, and she never bothered to tell us?

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