Autofocus (24 page)

As I open my mouth, I realize that, just as I wanted, she is going to be the first person I tell. Maybe this will all be okay after all.

FRIDAY

The next morning, I wake up in Treena's room. For once. I look over and she's leaving for class.

“I left out some no-milk chai for you. I'll be back in an hour, okay?” she asks.

“Sounds good,” I murmur sleepily.

“Oh, your mom called your phone, by the way. It flashed a few times this morning.”

I pick up my phone and see the missed call. There's also a text saying my relatives are coming to town tomorrow, so I shouldn't be too late. Which reminds me of something. . . .

“See you!” she says, heading out, and I wave. When the door shuts, I pick up my phone and know what I have to
do. It's just extremely hard.

I pace around the room, heart beating in my chest. This is the last call, the one person I have left.

I have the number Chad gave me. And it matches the one I called years ago looking for answers. The same number where the woman hung up on me. She was a disappointment then, and I don't know if I can be disappointed again. But I was fourteen then. I'm older now. I'm stronger. I can do this.

I dial the number.

“Hello?”

“Hi . . . Can I speak with Susan Fullman?” I ask the woman who answered the phone. She has a husky voice, one made by ten-too-many late nights and ten-thousand-too-many late cigarettes.

“I'm Susan.”

“Oh, hi, Susan, um.” I stop because this is her—this is it. I'm talking to my biological grandmother for the second—and possibly, if this doesn't go well, last—time. I can never repeat this moment, and I'm so nervous, I can't even take it all in.

“Well, spit it out.” She hurries me, so I panic.

“I'm Claire Fullman's daughter.”

There's silence. Then the strike of a match, a deep inhale. “What did you say?”

I go slower this time. “My name is Maude, and my birth mother was Claire Fullman . . . your daughter, right?”

More terrifying silence. “How'd you get this number?”

I breathe in and say, “Chad Glickman.” Silence. With all the power I have in me, I push myself to continue. “I know this is strange, and I don't mean to make you uncomfortable. I just . . . I never knew my mother. And I'm trying to. That's . . . what I'm doing.”

“Where are you?” she asks with a cough.

“In Tallahassee. I'm here looking at FSU, and decided to look her up while I was here. I mean, I know she's not here, but I just . . . I met a few of her old friends, like Chad.” I falter, and there's nothing. “I understand if you'd rather not talk, but I just thought I'd . . . try.”

Another deep breath. “I had a feeling this day would come. How old are you now? Sixteen?”

“Seventeen,” I say, knowing the past years don't just count my age.

“It's been seventeen years. . . . I don't know what you want me to say.”

“Just . . . anything. About her. About you. I mean, you're my—”

She cuts me off. “Claire was . . . Claire had problems.”

“Right, the heart condition,” I answer.

“Oh, she had problems before that,” she says with a sigh. “Listen, hon, this isn't a good time.”

“Excuse me?” I balk.

“I can't talk about this right now. I'm not ready to be a grandmother, if that's what you're looking for. I'm not grandmother material. And, as your mother used to say, I'm
not mother material, either.”

“I'm
not
looking for that,” I say. “I just wanted to talk to you. . . .”

“About what? You don't want to know about me after seventeen years. You want to know about her. And what can I say? She lived, and then she didn't. Is that good enough?” This time it's my turn to be silent. She's being awful, and I don't know why. We're related. I'm part of her, and she doesn't see that, or doesn't want to see it. She just wants to push me away.

“No, wait, I—” I start, but I don't know what to say.

“I don't know what else you want, but I have to go. You have my number; call again and maybe I'll be ready to talk then.”

“Oh . . .” I say, feeling my heart break and tear and open. “That's it?”

“What more do you want?”

“Anything,” I say. “Literally, anything.”

There's a gruff sigh, and then, “Claire and me didn't get along much. We did our own thing, and then she was gone and I blamed myself for a while. But I'm good now. It's been seventeen years and I'm good now. Is that it? Is that what you wanted to hear?”

“Oh, I'm so—”

“Don't sorry me. I've heard it enough. Like I said, I'm not ready to be a grandmother, so you figure this one out.”

“Okay,” I say, feeling the tears start to gather in my eyes
and fall down, each with a touch of disappointment.

“I'm sorry, but not now,” she says, then hangs up. I keep the phone next to my ear, as if thinking she didn't really say good-bye, and maybe she's still there. Maybe she's playing a joke on me.

Or maybe I'm the joke.

Couldn't she have spoken to me longer? Really, what could have been more important than talking to me? I mean, she said we could talk another time, but I want to talk now. If my long-lost granddaughter called me, I'd keep her on the phone for hours. I'd want to hear all about her life. I'd want to tell her about mine.

But I'm not her, and maybe she doesn't like surprises. She's never reached out to me—maybe there's a reason there.

I finally put down the phone, and sit on the bed. I remember that there's one more message out there, to Lisa, but I don't care anymore. The search is over, I've exhausted my sources, and I'm okay with it. Susan gave me answers she didn't even know she was offering.

And I think I found all the answers I really need.

After a few minutes of staring at nothing in particular, I realize I need to get out. I decide to discover the campus again. Only this time on my own.

I leave Treena a note, then grab the key for her bike.

Downstairs, I hop on and feel my legs push against the
pedals. Push by push, I'm moving forward, going faster and farther than I knew I could go.

My mother went here. I don't know where she lived, or what she did. I barely know what she liked, but she was here, on this campus. And it feels surreal and wonderful all in one to be in the same place as her.

I bike off the green and to the union. I pass the club where Treena and the guys did trivia, and think my mother probably saw a gig there. Long, loose skirt; I can picture her dancing and feeling the music. So I stop and take a picture.

I go past a bookstore and some more buildings. Past an observatory and a statue of three people standing tall. I pass a baseball field and the football field where I started out this entire journey. I turn around and head back up, toward the English building, and get a bit lost on the sidewalks and side streets. And I find myself in the middle of a garden.

It's small, but it includes rosebushes and a reflection pond. I get off the bike and sit on the grass. I focus on the pond, but not the water; instead, my reflection. I see myself in ripples and waves and every version of me colliding into one.

Like Treena, there are a few me's, too. There's the me who's perfectly behaved in school, who doesn't want to cause a problem. There's the me who jokes around with my parents and calls my mom out on her lameness. There's the me who's home when I'm with Treena, acting like a family of two. And there's that empty space that's just filling up with
memories that aren't mine. That space is reserved for my mother. That's the me I'll never fully know, but am trying to piece together.

The thing is, I'm happy she gave me up. She was my age—she was hardly a mother. She wasn't ready for that. And I love my parents so much. So for all of that, I'm grateful.

I think, in the end, I lost the image of someone I'd admire and look up to. Instead I just found . . . a person. And that person doesn't bring me any closer to figuring out who I am, and where I should go next. What I should do. Perhaps that's the biggest disappointment of them all.

Despite wanting to, I'll never be like my parents. But I'm not like Claire, either. I'm different. And because of that, I can be whoever I want.

I just need to decide who that person is.

I get back to the dorm and see Trey in the main lobby.

“Oh, hey,” he says, a bit surprised.

“Hi,” I say, trying to pass him.

“Um . . . how is she?” he asks, gesturing up toward Treena's room.

“She's great,” I say briskly, not wanting him to know how hurt she is.

“Good. Good. I . . .” He brushes his hair out of his face. “I feel shitty. She was good, you know? I just feel shitty.”

I look up at him and wonder what he was like in high school. Did he get all the girls then, too? Or was he just as
dorky as us? I wonder if this is who he is, or if he's transitioning, too. “You should tell her.”

“I don't think she wants to see me,” he says.

“She does. But later.”

“Okay.” He nods. “Later.”

He walks down the hall, hiking a bag over his shoulder. I don't know what's going to happen there, but if I can get some closure for Treena, at least that's something. I think, in a way, he's trying to figure himself out, too.

I feel a buzz in my pocket.

   
   
Awake?

I smile and head to Bennett's room.

“Bennett?” I ask, peeking my head inside the door.

“Hey!” he says, looking up from his computer. He's still in his pajamas.

“Am I interrupting . . . ?” I ask.

“No, come in,” he says, grabbing for my hands and pulling me down for a kiss. I sit on his bed behind him and he gestures to the screen. “Just animating,” he says. I look at the little green alien spinning in circles.

“You made that?” I ask, amazed.

“Yeah, it's not much. I designed him last week—I'm seeing how he moves now. I think he's a bit spastic, really.”

“How so?” I ask, running my fingers through his hair.

“I don't know—see his mouth? How it's a huge grin? I
figure he's just always happy, you know? Always amusing himself. So right now he's spinning in circles because he likes to feel the world spin.”

“How do you feel the world spin?” I ask.

He turns and faces me. “Wait. Have you never spun in a circle and then fallen to the ground?”

“Oh! That. Yes.”

“I was going to say. First bike, then spinning . . .” He smiles.

“Yeah, yeah,” I say. “I like him. He kind of reminds me of you.”

“Because I'm a spastic green alien?”

“Obviously.” I smile, and he starts tickling my sides. “Okay, okay, you're not a spastic green alien!” I laugh, pushing at him. He stops, and wraps his arms around me. “He's happy and alive. Like you.”

Bennett stares at me, and then kisses me again, and it's cute, and he's cute, and I know we're not forever, but I'd like to remember this moment forever.

I walk back downstairs and find Treena sitting on her bed, reading.

“And where were you?” she asks, grinning.

“Bike ride.” I throw her bike key at her. “And then upstairs,” I admit, smiling.

“Oooohhhh.” She fake swoons, and I jump on her bed, covering her mouth with my hand.

“You hush,” I say, removing my hand. “What have you been up to?”

“Actually,” she says, putting down her book, “Trey stopped by.”

“He did?” I ask. I didn't think he'd stop by so soon. “How'd that go?”

“Okay.” She shrugs. “Not awful.”

“So . . . ?” I ask, sitting on the bed next to her.

“We're not back together, if that's what you're asking. And that's good. He wants to have fun; I want to be a bit more serious. And that's okay. It's good we know it now,” she says.

“You sound very mature about all of this,” I say, seeing a hint of the Treena I remember, the one who logically explained
why
it was better that she skip prom, because why spend all that money on something that only lasts one night?

She shrugs and smiles. “I've thought it over. I don't really want to be with a guy who wants to be with other girls, you know?”

“Finally,”
I say, exasperated, and she laughs. “You need someone better.”

“Yeah. I mean, I guess I want a guy who just wants me.”

“Good.”

“I only wish it hurt a bit less, you know?”

“You're still allowed to be sad.”

She sighs. “I'm actually impressed with you. You've
accomplished so much, and aren't really showing it.”

I think about how Bennett was in on so much with me this week, and remember how I always wanted it to be Treena. So I tell her about the last step I took.

“I talked to my grandmother today.”

“Wait, hold up,” she says, kneeling on her bed. “Your grandmother? How? When? What?”

“I know, crazy, right?”

“No, monumental. Didn't you think you talked to her the one time?”

“Yes,” I say, because she remembers. “And it was the same person. I was right.” I explain how Chad gave me the number, and how the call went. “She kind of doesn't want anything to do with me.”

“How can that be?” Treena asks, outraged. “You're her
granddaughter.
How can she just not care?”

“It's been a while, I guess. I've never been part of her life, and for all she knew, I never would be.”

“No, I don't believe that. She had to have assumed you'd come around one day. That you'd want to know.”

She's right, and Susan mentioned something along those lines. But still, she didn't seem to care. It's like her assumption was fulfilled, so she was done. “She doesn't seem to care about that.”