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  Blink.

  “Do you ever wonder what it’d be like? To have to ask other people for all the things you need?”

  Blink.

  I slowed the car to get a better look at the mother. She was staring at a cell phone and fumbling with a cigarette. The baby was crying, but no one was paying attention.

  Blink.

  Lisa grabbed the wheel and twisted it. I slammed my foot on the brake before I had time to think about it. A boy had jumped out in front of my car, but I didn’t even see him.

  Now he stood in front of my hood laughing.

  I jumped out of the car. “What the hell are you doing?”

  He smiled a lazy smile, the type I’d seen on some of the kids at school. Leering. Slow. Deliberate.

  “Hey, can you help us?” he asked, only his tone made it more of a demand than a question. “My mom needs money to feed my little brother.”

  I looked over the boy’s shoulder. The woman I assumed was his mother smiled at me from where she sat, looking unbothered about the fact that her kid had just run in front of my car. It wasn’t a “please help me” smile. It was a challenge that wrapped itself around her face like her lips wrapped around the cigarette in her hand. Next to her sat a full, stickered carton. I didn’t say the obvious, that she could feed her kids with what cigarettes cost these days.

  Oblivious, the baby stuck a handful of dirt in its mouth.

  “Sorry, I can’t,” I said. “Not today. But . . .” I rustled through my pockets and came up with a hard mint I’d taken from the little glass bowl at the pharmacy counter, “Can he have this?” I asked the woman.

  She gestured for me to give it to her, so I leaned over and placed it in her dirty palm.

  She held it up by the plastic and examined it before throwing it in the grass.

  “What we really need is money,” the boy said. He’d taken a step toward me and was standing too close. I moved back. Now I could see that he was around my age. Older maybe, but only just.

  “That’s all I have,” I shrugged. From my pocket, my phone buzzed. “Sorry.” I moved toward the car where Lisa waited. I had to get her home and then get the car back before Mama freaked.

  The boy gave me the finger as I pulled away.

  To: MountainBoy@me.com

  From: Yuri.Guryev@birthsearch.ru

  You are correct. We do birth family searches using local investigators. You have not told me what region your search would need to occur in, or even your name. Please be aware that we do not operate in the United States.

  Our fee is $500. For that, we hope to supply whatever data we can find, including video interviews with family members.

  Best,

  Yuri

  After I gave Mama her medicine and made her a cup of tea, I sat in my room, staring at my phone. It wasn’t the $500 that had me freaked out—every birthday and Christmas, I’d divvied my gifts into piles: Spend, Donate, Save. I’d put aside the money I’d made shoveling snow and mowing lawns and running errands. I had more than $500 in the bank.

  What got to me was “video interviews.” The idea that I would not only get photos, but also hear the voices of my Eastern European . . . I didn’t know what to call them. Family felt wrong. But out there somewhere were people. People I was related to. A woman who had walked around pregnant with me.

  Mama and Dad hadn’t shared details about why I was put up for adoption. But I’m sure they knew. I caught the look between them when I asked a few years ago, and I suspected then that they’d never tell me.

  There were sites on the Internet that showed pictures of available babies. I didn’t understand how you could give up a kid regardless, but the one thing Mama had talked about when I was eight and trying to wrap my head around it all was how different cultures had different superstitions and forms of discrimination about unwed mothers as well as disabilities.

  I wasn’t disabled, and my faults weren’t unusual. I sucked at algebra. My room was a mess. I spent too much time dicking around on the Internet. I played my stereo too loud.

  But my birth family wouldn’t have known about any of those. Maybe they weren’t married? Were too poor? Too young?

  I’d been wondering about these things for so long, and now I finally had the chance to get answers.

  But I was afraid, too. What if there were things wrong with me that were just waiting under the surface? Things I didn’t even know about? I’d read that there were forms of mental illness that were hereditary but didn’t show up until you were an adult. I’d read that eighteen is like some magic age for the onset of schizophrenia, and my birthday was only a couple of months away.

  I could already be sick and not even know it. Maybe that’s what the whole deal with the mountains was.

  That was part of the reason I’d never mentioned my plans to anyone. There was no way I was going to tell Mama and Dad that I was even considering this. And my few close friends just didn’t, couldn’t, get it. I mean, how could I even expect them to? Danny’s parents and grandparents and most of his aunts, uncles, and cousins, all lived within a fifteen-minute drive of each other. Louis’s parents were divorced, but that just meant that he spent the school year here with his mom and stepfather and his two brothers, and vacations and summers in Seattle with his dad, his wife, and her daughters. Even Lisa . . .

  The weird thing was that Lisa was adopted, too. But when her moms decided to have a kid, they put an ad in a magazine and found a couple who needed someone to raise their baby. Then they had a “semi-open adoption,” which meant that her moms and her birth family exchanged Christmas and birthday cards, and they all got together at the beach once a year in the summer.

  I loved Mama and Dad. And they loved me; I’d never had a reason to doubt that. So I didn’t understand this unshakable curiosity. This hole in me. These dreams of mountains.

  Did I have family—brothers and sisters, maybe—who were looking at those snowcapped peaks right now? Was anyone out there wondering what had happened to me? Would I ever know?

  To: Yuri.Guryev@birthsearch.ru

  From: MountainBoy@me.com

  My name is Marin and I was adopted from Eastern Europe, but . . . is it okay if I don’t tell you more until I hire you?

  That night I dreamt about the family of beggars. In my dream, the boy grabbed my arm and shoved it next to his, saying, “Look, we’re the same.”

  I couldn’t say anything back because he was right. Our skin colors matched. And when I looked into his eyes, I saw that the shapes were identical.

  In the morning I texted Lisa to ask if she would take me back to the store. To the lot. To the family.

  I told her about the dream I’d had. Then I told her the part of my fear I thought I could talk about. I asked while she drove, “What if I’m related to them? To this family?” even though that wasn’t really something I thought possible. “I mean, they’re kind of awful.”

  Lisa shrugged, and her hands tightened on the wheel. “Yeah, but . . . I don’t know. Maybe they just need help?”

  I thought of the boy jumping in front of Mom’s car. The sneer in his eyes. The mother tossing away the candy.

  “Well, they sure have a funny way of asking for it.”

  Lisa was quiet until we pulled off the freeway. “Believe me, I get why you want to find your birth family,” she said. “But I don’t understand how these people have anything to do with that. And you need to be careful, Marin. This stuff is harder than you think. I grew up knowing my birth family. I still get angry at them for giving me up, even though I wouldn’t change anything now.” I squeezed her hand and said, “I know,” although I wasn’t sure I really did. I loved my parents. My grandparents. My life. Wanting answers and wanting to change things were totally different.

  The family was in the parking lot, just like last time. I asked Lisa to park in front of the store while I ran in and gra
bbed a couple of sandwiches, some bottled water, and a banana for the baby.

  When I came out, Lisa looked at the bag in my hand. “I get what you’re trying to do. I really do. But maybe it would be better to give them info for a shelter or something? That’s what my moms tell me to do.”

  “It’s just food.” My muscles tensed. The bag was suddenly impossibly heavy. I shrugged. “Besides, I already bought this stuff. I might as well give it to them.”

  The boy saw me coming and walked over. Swaggered, really. “You bring us some more candy?” he asked.

  I closed my eyes. Inhaled to get my bearings. What if my birth family was poor? Begging. What would I want someone to do?

  I thrust the bag toward him. “I brought you some food.”

  His mother sucked on another cigarette. She didn’t look interested.

  The boy dug his hand into the bag and pulled out an orange. “You really aren’t getting this.” He bounced the fruit up and down in his hand.

  I could hear his accent now. His mother yelled something at him and he responded. I couldn’t figure out what language they were speaking, yet somehow it sounded familiar.

  I leaned in and grabbed the fruit from him before it bruised. “Where do you live, anyhow?”

  “I didn’t know that I invited you over for dinner . . .” he said.

  Next to me, Lisa quietly said, “Marin, let’s just go. I don’t think they want your help.”

  She was probably right, but I couldn’t bring myself to walk away.

  “The world, man. We’re citizens of the world,” the boy said, his eyes slowly traveling across Lisa’s body.

  And that’s all it took. I turned and walked away. Taking the bag with me.

  To: MountainBoy@me.com

  From: Yuri.Guryev@birthsearch.ru

  Marin, in this process you should feel free to tell me only the things that you wish to share. If/when you decide to hire me though, I’m sure you’ll understand that the more information you share, the more we will have to go on.

  There is, of course, no guarantee that your birth family will be found and if that happens there will be no fee. People move. Change their names. There are many ways to stay hidden.

  June 22 was our “gotcha day.” At least that’s what my parents called it in honor of the day they “got me.” Every year, we celebrated the day the same way. My mom made a giant crème brûlée and dragged out the photos they’d taken at the orphanage.

  “I wonder what happened to Simon,” she’d muse about the little boy with the toothy grin who had been my closest friend, even though I didn’t remember him.

  “Should we send a photo, Marin?” my dad would ask.

  For the first couple of years after I was home, my parents had to file a report letting the orphanage know that I was being well taken care of. They hadn’t needed to do that in a long time. But some years we still sent a letter, photos, news about the first (and only) all-A report card I earned, a photo of me on my junior high baseball team.

  I wasn’t sure what I had to prove or whom I was proving it to. I didn’t remember much about the staff in the orphanage or whether they were even still there. But the whole thing seemed to make my dad happy and proud. And some years that was reason enough.

  But this year, I wasn’t sure. As I flipped through my mother’s scrapbook (“Look! Here’s the plane ticket you used to come home.” “Here’s you and that stuffed elephant we brought. Do you remember?”), I noticed the background more than I had before. The peeling paint on the door of the orphanage. The Soviet-era statues, covered in graffiti around town. The mountains.

  And in a few of the city scenes, the beggars. Obviously, it wasn’t the boy and his family. I got that. But it could have been. It could have been my family. Birth family. Maybe.

  “Marin?”

  I looked up at my father and his concern. I didn’t know what to do. Not about the photos. Not about the begging family. Not about the search.

  He looked at me as if he could read my confusion. “We can skip the photo this year,” he said and closed the album. “Let’s go set fire to the brûlée.”

  I thought about the phrase the investigator had used: ways to stay hidden. Maybe my birth family wouldn’t want information about me anyhow. Maybe they wouldn’t want to share their own. After all, they had to figure that they’d never hear from or about me again when they gave me up, right? Maybe that’s what they were counting on.

  But then I thought of Lisa’s birth family. Her birth mom had been just sixteen and already looking out for a younger sister because her own mom worked two jobs. Back then, her birth dad didn’t even know he’d gotten someone pregnant.

  Now, everyone claims to love those summer mixed-family trips together, although Lisa admits they’re kind of strange. She has a stepbrother on her birth mother’s side and two little twin sisters on her birth father’s, but she only sees them once a year, so . . .

  Maybe something like that happened with my birth family. Maybe they wanted to keep me, but couldn’t.

  And I love my parents, so maybe it doesn’t matter.

  Maybe.

  Regardless of what I was doing—summer reading; helping Mom build a raised garden bed; riding my bike to Lisa’s and sitting on her back porch, making out until we lost track of time—I couldn’t get that boy, that family out of my head.

  Every time I spaced out; every time I forgot to pick something up that my mom had asked me for; every time I dreamed of those damned mountains, I wondered what type of screwed-up inheritance might be waiting for me.

  It was a vicious circle, the wondering and the fear.

  I told Mama I was okay. I told Dad I was okay. But when they both sat me down and gently suggested that maybe, perhaps, we might want to “talk to someone” about how distracted I’d been, I knew I had to act.

  I needed to go back and see that family. I couldn’t figure out how to wrangle the car from Mom, and I didn’t want to ask Lisa, but eventually I had no choice. And I think Lisa got it, because she didn’t question me when I asked her to drive, except to ask what I planned to do.

  I couldn’t explain the dread and fear that something might be wrong with me. I couldn’t explain how this boy made me feel like I was looking into some sort of twisted mirror.

  So I shrugged and asked her to park and wait while I ducked into the store.

  I hesitated as I started to walk out. The $260 (the ATM only gave out twenty-dollar bills) felt conspicuous and surprisingly heavy in my pocket.

  I didn’t hear the boy come up behind me until he whispered, “Looking for me?”

  I turned and stumbled. “No. I mean—”

  He laughed a sound tinged with something other than amusement. My stomach clenched.

  “Look. I was going to use my money for . . .” I stopped. No way was I going to tell him. “something else. But . . . I’ll give it to you if it will help. I mean, you could get a hotel room for a couple of nights or some real food or—”

  The boy cocked his head at me. “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why do you want to help so bad? You got it good. You feeling guilt or something?”

  If I couldn’t tell Lisa the truth, there was no way I was going to tell him. And the more I thought about my fears and how they were tangled up, the more I realized that I couldn’t have told him even if I wanted to.

  I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, my hand wrapped around the money in my pocket. If I gave this boy my money, I wasn’t going to be able to hire the investigator. Not for a long time, anyhow.

  And so I wouldn’t know if I was going to be okay. But then I might not know anyhow.

  I took out all the money except for one twenty. “I just want to help,” I said. “Like my parents helped me.”

  The boy looked at the bills in my hand, one eyebrow raised, and licked h
is lips. Greedy. Predatory. Challenging.

  I pushed it toward him. “Take it.”

  He hesitated.

  “Take it,” I said again, and then, “and stop jumping in front of people’s cars.”

  He grabbed it quickly and shoved it into his pocket. Then he turned and walked away without even a thank-you.

  I went back into the store and spent my final twenty on two bouquets. One for Lisa and one for Mama. Then I went home.

  To: Yuri.Guryev@birthsearch.ru

  From: MountainBoy@me.com

  Mr. Guryev—I’ve decided not to look for my birth family now. I thought I wanted to. I thought I needed to. I thought . . . well, I just had a lot of questions. But right now, I’m not sure they’re questions I really need answers to.

  If it’s okay, I’ll hang on to your address in case I want to look for them later.

  That night, I didn’t dream of mountains. I dreamed something I thought I’d forgotten a long time ago. The plane ride to the United States from the orphanage. Mama sitting on one side of me. Dad on the other. The sound of the engines starting up, and Mama whispering quietly in my ear, “This is it. This is the start of the rest of your life. You are loved.”

  Helene Dunbar is the author of These Gentle Wounds (Flux, 2014), What Remains (Flux, 2015), and Boomerang (Sky Pony, 2017). Over the years, she’s worked as a drama critic, journalist, and marketing manager, and she has written on topics as diverse as Irish music, court cases, theater, and Native American Indian tribes. She lives in Nashville with her husband and daughter and exists on a steady diet of readers’ tears.

  “As an adoptive parent to a daughter from Eastern Europe, I am a firm believer that families are created by the affection in your heart and not only by the DNA in your blood. Love is love is love, and you are blessed by its gift, regardless of by which means it finds you.”

  Webbed

  by Julie Eshbaugh

  Miranda held the sealed letter loosely in her fingers, trying not to let her damp palms dimple the paper. The sea breeze stirred her hair, raising goose bumps at the back of her neck. She’d dragged a beach chair to the edge of the boardwalk, and her feet were propped on the railing, the thongs of her hot pink flip-flops—her first-ever pair—wedged between her newly separated toes.