“And on the day the baby was born, she signed the papers and gave him up. It wasn’t easy for her. But she made the decision because she couldn’t give the boy a life.”

Grandpa rummaged in the box again, pulling out another picture of my mom. This time she was in a hospital bed, her pale lips pressed to the forehead of a tiny, red face peering out of the blanketed bundle in her arms.

“That’s the only picture we have of Baby Boy Berezin. Valerie didn’t name him, of course. A few minutes after that picture was taken he was given to his new parents, who were waiting in the hospital.”

“So this is Jason?”

“Jason? That’s a strong name.” Grandpa looked down, silent for a moment. “Was he the one in the diner when your grandmother and I were there?”

“The one you wouldn’t stop staring at?” I asked.

Grandpa nodded.

“Yeah, that was him. Did you know?”

“No. It never crossed my mind. But he looked familiar. I was trying to place him.”

“He’s a nice guy.”

Grandpa ignored my comment and handed me the shoe box. “These were some pictures of your mom’s. Maybe you’d like to keep them.”

“Can I give this one to Jason?” I held up the one of him and my mom from his birth.

“It’s yours now. You can do whatever you wish.” Grandpa started to get up.

“What about me?” I asked quickly. Since I’d already staged the big confrontation, I wanted all the skeletons out of the closet.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, that’s Jason’s story. What about mine? Did you know my dad? Was he an idiot like Vince?”

“He was.” Grandpa sat back down. “In fact, it was the idiot Vince.”

“What?” I almost snapped my neck, as I instantly turned my attention from the shoe box in my lap to my grandpa’s face.

“She was young and in love.” He chuckled, but the sound was distant and weary. “He said all the right things and she took him back. She was out of the house at that point, so your grandmother and I didn’t know she was seeing him again. We didn’t know they got married.”

“What?” I asked. I felt my eyes bulge from my head. I didn’t know my mom had been married to my sperm donor.

“Yes, well, it didn’t last. As soon as he found out she was pregnant, he left and never came back. Your mom had taken on three jobs before she even told us about her pregnancy, just to prove that she could take care of you on her own.” Grandpa took my hand and looked into my eyes. His expression was soft but pained. I couldn’t imagine what he thought when he looked at me. Probably that I ruined everyone’s life: my mom’s, my sperm donor’s, my grandparents’.

“She loved you, Audushka,” he said, his eyes glassy, as if he’d read my mind. “She loved you so much.”

The tension harbored in my shoulders for fourteen years released in a massive slump. I didn’t realize a simple sentence could be so powerful. My stoic, seemingly unaffectionate grandpa was the first person to tell me my mom loved me. I’m sure everyone assumed I knew how she felt, but since I couldn’t even remember one minute with her, hearing him say it was extraordinary.

“I’m sorry about the way your grandmother and I reacted when you told us about Jason, Audushka. We were startled and didn’t know what to do. I’m sorry we never told you about him. We should have. In all these years, he’d never tried to find us, so we never thought you needed to know.”

The newly confident part of me wanted to ask why they would only tell me if my brother came looking for us. Why didn’t they think having a brother was something I should be aware of no matter what the situation? Though Grandpa and I turned a corner in our relationship, I knew my questions would start a fight, and we’d come too far for me to take it there.

“It just doesn’t seem right,” I said, abandoning my questions and looking at the picture of my mom and Jason instead.

“She loved you, Audushka,” Grandpa said again, squeezing me against his side. “She never once thought about giving you up. She said she could never do that again, which is why she worked her ass off. We helped, of course, if she needed it, but she rarely did. She was a strong, stubborn girl. That’s where you get those qualities, in case you were wondering.”

“Funny, I thought I got them from you.”

Grandpa laughed, which made me happy. I was sick of fighting with my grandparents. Sick of being mad at them. Sick of anger and withdrawal always being my first reactions. I didn’t want to live that way anymore.

But how do you begin to change after being ingrained with ideas for almost twenty years? Maybe I already had changed, because even with Kristen’s insistence, I never would have come here if I hadn’t.

“Thank you for being honest with me. I’m sorry about how I brought it up and how I acted. It was childish and immature.”

“Well, so were we. We should have been prepared. We knew it might come up someday. I promise to be better next time.”

“Next time?” My shoulders stiffened as I wiggled out of Grandpa’s half embrace. “More secrets?”

“No, Audushka, no more secrets. I meant next time we find ourselves in a highly emotional situation, I need to react better.”

“Well, I hope we don’t find ourselves in too many more.” I scavenged through the shoe box, flipping through photos and concert ticket stubs with my index finger. “As long as we’re being honest…”

“Yes?” Grandpa’s tone lowered.

“I, um, I went through that envelope with articles about mom. The one in your locked cabinet upstairs. Sorry for snooping. I was just curious.”

He nodded. “And?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I just wanted to know what happened.”

“It’s very hard for your grandmother and me to talk about.” Grandpa cleared his throat. “But you can ask us questions if you have any.”

I opened my mouth, then closed it and shook my head.

“You sure?”

I nodded. “I just wanted to be honest.”

“Thank you. You have grown up, Audushka. Your mother would be very proud of the woman that you are.”

With that, I buried my face into Grandpa’s shoulder, wrapping both arms around him in a massive bear hug. I almost felt bad soaking his navy blue Michigan University Language Department polo with tears. Almost.

Your mother would be very proud of the woman that you are.

Every kid wants to hear their parents say they love them and are proud of them, but it’s especially crucial for those of us who don’t have parents. Like forgotten fish, we race to the top of our bowl, desperately chomping the water for flakes of love to fill us up.

Chapter 28

“Here.” I threw a candy necklace at Kristen. The candy necklace was a prop we’d used in our younger days when we were on the prowl for men. What hot-blooded male wouldn’t want to nuzzle up to a girl and bite a piece of candy off her neck?

“Auden, I don’t think we should use these tonight,” she warned, twirling the necklace around her index finger.

“Come on, KK. You’re the one who said I needed to get back out there.” Though I dreaded using the necklace myself, I knew Kristen would in order to help me get over Aleksandr. Even if I had to pull out the big guns to make it happen.

“This isn’t what I meant.”

I ignored her and ran my straightener through the final section of my hair before sliding smoothing serum over the strands. I checked my outfit in the mirror as I wiped the greasy hair product remains on a towel.

Once Kristen and I had both finished getting ready, we grabbed our drinks and walked to the apartment next door where Scott, Lacy’s boyfriend, lived with three other guys. I had forgiven Scott for the whole bringing-a-friend-who-tried-to-drug-me fiasco, but I was still leery of him. It was business as usual to keep my guard up around him again.

“Damn, ladies!” one of Scott’s roommates called out when we walked in the apartment. He hit a button on his CD player and the mellow hum at the beginning of Blackstreet’s “No Diggity” filled the room. It was Kristen’s favorite song. Yet another reason we’d become best friends—our shared love of nineties music.