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  For my siblings—E, D & I

  “I’m me. Me.” Each time she said the word me there was a gathering in her like power, like joy, like fear … “Me,” she murmured. And then, sinking deeper into her quilts, “I want … I want to be … wonderful. Oh, Jesus, make me wonderful.”

  —Toni Morrison, Sula

  Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think. It’s splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world.

  —L. M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

  Part I:

  SPRING

  Tumbleweeds

  I am a girl but most days I feel like a question mark. People throw their looks at me. Then back at my mama sister and papa. Who are all as white as oleander. Then they look back at me. Black as a midnight orchard. And I see their puzzled faces trying to understand where I fit. People ask me where I’m from but I know they really mean

  Who do you belong to?

  Right now I am on the road. Somewhere just outside of St. Louis. It’s March. Our second day of driving cross-country from Baltimore to our new house in Albuquerque. I sit in the middle seat of the minivan with the windows cracked. My ashy legs spotted with sunshine. My older sister Eve in the seat behind me. Her glossy brown hair blowing in the breeze. Mama is up front with one hand on the wheel. Her violin in the passenger seat. The neck tipped down like a bottle being emptied into the sink. All of us heading west. A copper sun warming the sky. All of us singing along with the radio at the top of our lungs.

  And Mama has a smile on her face this morning. Her freckled cheeks flushed red as a juneberry as she sings and rolls the front windows down so that the whole van becomes a whistle. The wind whips in and out of our throats our eyes our hair and I forget my ashy knees. I forget to miss my best friend Lena who I’ve left behind. The only other girl I know who is like me. An adopted mismatched girl. I forget to be angry at Papa for missing another family adventure. For having to fly ahead of us to start his new job with the symphony. I forget to worry about Mama and Papa always fighting these days. Mama staring wildly through windows. Hardly playing her violin at all.

  For hours we drive and sing the sun into its highest point in the sky. This is where I am from! I whisper-yell between verses. And for a moment I hope we might stay like this forever. Me Mama and Eve. A tangled smear of color barreling past ghost towns and highway markers. Three tumbleweeds just blowing in the wind.

  In Broken Arrow Oklahoma

  Mama and Eve grab snacks from the rest stop mini-mart while I lounge in the driver’s seat pretending I am grown. Beep beep! I air honk the horn. “Look out world. I’m coming. Are you ready?” But the rumble in my stomach is the only answer I get. It’s past lunchtime.

  The road is the only place we are allowed junk food. Normally it’s organic meat. Limp veggies. Strange grains like barley millet and quinoa. Snacks of apple slices and carrot sticks. Beet and sweet potato chips. And forget about Halloween candy or birthday cakes. “When you’re eighteen” Mama says “you can eat all the candy and processed sugar you want since you’ll be paying your own dentist bills!”

  But being on the road changes the rules. There’s nothing but gas station food Taco Bells and greasy diners off I-40 West. Mama and Eve walk back to the van now with armfuls of the healthiest junk food they can find. Pretzels honey-roasted peanuts dark chocolate bars and more. I climb into the middle seat and Eve jumps in the back and tears open a bag of baked Lay’s.

  “Lemme have a chip!” I say.

  Eve plunges her hand into the bag and pulls out a huge handful which she then crushes into her mouth.

  “You’re disgusting.”

  “Gim-mme-a-kiss!” She leans forward. An avalanche of chip pieces spewing from her mouth.

  I crack a smile and snatch the bag from her.

  Mama revs the engine and yells: “Seatbelts on!” And then to me: “Are you sure you don’t need to pee?”

  “Nope. No thanks! Rest stop bathrooms are gross.”

  “Ok. Your choice. But I’m not stopping again until dinner.”

  I look at the time on the dashboard. It’s only 2pm. Dinner won’t be until around 7 but the thought of going out into another bathroom and facing the eyes of confused clerks and customers as they try to figure out where I came from makes my stomach knot. Before I can change my mind Mama is speeding out onto the road. I cross my legs and whip my head around. I watch the gas pumps greasy truck drivers and low buildings disappear into a cloud of dirt.

  Family Names

  Daniel Anna

    Eve

      Makeda

  One of these is not like the rest.

  Eve is fourteen. Three years older than me and the biological child of our parents. Their “miracle baby” since Mama was told she’d never be able to have kids. Eve has the same thick brown hair and pale complexion as Mama and Papa and sometimes when you look at pictures of Mama from childhood you’d swear you were looking right at Eve.

  Eve used to be a lot more fun but these days all she seems to care about are her pores texting or complaining about her mysterious “cramps” at the most inconvenient times. Even now she hogs the whole back seat with her stacks of Seventeen magazines (which I am not allowed to read yet) and ignores me as I try to get her to play the license plate game.

  I am eleven. All elbow and chubby cheek with a baby smile and fuzzy rows of tight dreadlocks crowning my head. Where my face is round the rest of my body is what the white boys at my old school used to say is “Africa skinny” with lean arms. Thin legs and a little potbelly that peeks out from under my tops and elastic-waisted skirts.

  “Those boys just don’t realize how elegant you are!” Mama likes to tell me on days I come home with war in my eyes. “Always remember you’re my little African princess.”

  But I’m not African. I’m African American. It always bothers me when she says this. I was born in Atlanta Georgia then adopted after six months. I flew with a social worker to Baltimore to meet my family and it was Mama who gave me my name. Makeda June Kirkland.

  June because that’s what my birth mother called me. Kirkland because that’s Papa’s last name. And Makeda. An Ethiopian name meaning “Queen of Sheba” all because Mama read an article about famine in Ethiopia and decided to name me after a girl listed among the dead.

  “We got you almost one year after I read that story! Our own beautiful black baby. Soft as a peach.” Mama likes to tell. “And I just knew I had to name you after that poor girl. I knew she would live on in you. My Makeda.”

  I like Keda for short. I am not a dead girl.

  Time Passes on the Road

  But you wouldn’t know it except for the sun sliding its way down the sky like an egg yolk. Three hours later we are somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Nothing but prairie livestock and small towns for miles and miles on end. Eve naps and snores loudly while I sit twisting a ha
ir tie around my thumb watching all the color drain from it. In the front seat Mama listens to recordings of her own from the old days. Mama is a solo violinist. She played with her first symphony at the age of eight. Had visited over twenty countries by the time she was my age and had played in Carnegie Hall in New York City twice before either Eve or I came along in her early twenties.

  “I was a prodigy.” She likes to remind us. “But then I decided to start a family. And that changes everything for a woman.”

  She always says that last part. About being a woman. So that it prickles my ears. Her voice turning small and grainy as if she’s been swallowing rocks. And even though she has hardly played her violin for the last year (since she got let go from her teaching job at a private school) it sits now in the passenger side taking up a whole seat Eve and I would kill for. We know better than to ask her to move it or comment on how little she’s practiced. We also know better than to bother her when she starts reminiscing about past concerts and recordings. Sibelius Concerto in D Minor booms now from the speakers and Mama’s right hand escapes the wheel to saw through the air in bow-like movements along with the track. Her long braid hangs over her right shoulder like an old friend and for a moment I catch her closing her eyes lost in some enormous swell of sound. Before I can say anything the car passing us on the left honks and Mama swerves back into her lane.

  “Jerk!” She flips the car off as it speeds past. Tears bursting from her eyes and disappearing into the canyon of her lap. She switches off her recording and fiddles with the radio for a moment but we are in a dead zone and only a few static Christian radio stations come through. “Sing me something Makeda.” She says after a while. “Or else I’m going to fall asleep up here.”

  And something heavy in her voice warns me not to say no. So I start to hum some made-up tune until the radio kicks back in and Mama’s face dries into a hard-smooth shine.

  Somewhere in Texas

  We stop for dinner. Mama lets us order hamburgers even though she’s pretty sure we’re putting ourselves at risk for mad cow disease. She orders a sad-looking salad while Eve and I slather our plates in so much ketchup our table looks like a mini crime scene. We eat like wolves. No napkins no forks. We stuff as many fries as we can fit into our mouths. Burger grease drips down our arms.

  “Honestly girls.” Mama interrupts. “Slow down! Your food’s not going anywhere.” But we are too hungry to care. Mama picks and picks at her salad and then steps outside to give Papa a call. We watch through the glass windows as she dials and sets her lips in a firm line.

  “Blah blah blah. You son of a b— this drive is killing me. I can’t believe you left me to do it alone!” Eve starts to interpret their conversation pretending that her fork is Mama and the spoon is Papa. We can’t hear what Mama is actually saying but she’s been complaining to Papa since he left last week.

  “Honey.” Eve continues now in Papa’s soft voice. “You’re more than halfway here! I promise it’s going to be worth it when you see the house. It’s beautiful. With a huge yard. I have everything set up. Blah blah blah.”

  And then again in Mama’s voice. “You better or I’m going to turn this van around and head right back! What about my career huh? What good does this move do for me?”

  “Stop it!” I giggle even though I feel like throwing up. “You don’t know what they’re talking about.”

  Eve snorts and drops the spoon and fork back on the table. “Don’t be so stupid Keda. You know it’s some version of that.”

  I look outside. Mama is tugging at her braid. Twisting it around her wrist over and over again. The thin line of her mouth has transformed into a pink gash flashing teeth and spit as she yell-cries into her phone. Above her head moths swarm a piss-colored fluorescent light creating the illusion of a rain cloud directly over her. Eve rolls her eyes and gets up to use the restroom. I stick my hand into my water glass and stir the ice until they both return. Then I shove my numb fingers into my mouth and bite down as hard as I can.

  I Have a Secret

  Shadows in my room at night

  Two women swaying

  In the dark-light

  At first I am afraid

  They are as tall as trees

  They surround my bed

  And lean over me

  Their breath sweet and sticky

  Scent of sap and summer

  The wind of their movement

  Fluttering the sheets

  My eyelashes

  At first all I can make out

  Is a low hum

  A river-thick rush of sound

  But here in the Texas night

  Tucked away in a Motel 6

  Mama and Eve snoring softly

  For the first time

  Since they started visiting a month ago

  I understand they are singing to me

  Outside the highway hurries by

  The bare moon blinking

  Through the thin curtains

  And like always

  I am still awake

  Scared and full of worry

  “You followed me?”

  I whisper

  As they approach

  We go where you go

  Baby girl baby girl

  They sing

  And I want to tell them

  I am not

  A baby anymore

  Everything is changing

  But they sing

  So I close my eyes

  We go where you go

  Baby girl baby girl

  My breath slows

  And I fall

  Into a dream

  About her

  She

  Is a woman with no face and no name

  My birth mother

  Everything I know about her

  Is in my adoption file

  I lived in her womb for nine months

  She gave birth to me on December 8th

  She was a freshman in college when she had me

  She decided not to keep me

  She picked my family as her first choice

  She could not keep me

  She did not want to keep me?

  I love her

  Some days I hate her

  I dream and dream of her everywhere I go

  Classical Music

  Is a big deal in our family. In fact it’s your legacy! Papa likes to remind us when Eve and I start to whine about practicing piano for one hour each day. I HATE the piano but the next morning as we wash our faces and pack the van back up for our final day of driving I am a little lighter knowing our baby grand is stuffed deep into the moving truck with all of our other belongings. No practicing on the road!

  Papa is strict about what goes in and out of our ears. He’s a cellist. Now the principal cellist of the New Mexico Symphony and both he and Mama have been playing classical music since they were little kids. In our house we listen to old dead guy composers like Chopin Bach Brahms Vivaldi Tchaikovsky Schumann Mendelssohn Beethoven and more. But when Papa is not around we can convince Mama to let us listen to almost anything we want. I like Beyoncé and Katy Perry but I also really love jazz and the blues. And besides this is the only black music I’m allowed to listen to. “No rap! No hip-hop! No R and B!” Papa likes to lecture us. “It’s just a bunch of noise and gibberish!” It makes my tongue go numb when he says this. Do I sound like gibberish when I sing?

  “Can we listen to ‘A-Tisket A-Tasket’?” I ask as Mama turns onto the highway.

  “Sure. That sounds nice.”

  And as the van revs up to full speed Ella Fitzgerald’s voice climbs with it. And I don’t care if it is old or sounds scratchy and fuzzy playing on the speakers. I love Ella and Billie Holiday and oh I just can’t get enough of Nina Simone. These women sing and I feel like they are talking to me. Like we are speaking the same language. Like they know what it is to feel loved and lonely all at the same time.

  As We Drive Through the Red Desert

  I miss the green of Baltimore. I mis
s my best friend Lena. I miss playing under the willow tree in her backyard dreaming of college and boys. Lena and I met in the 2nd grade in a playgroup for adopted kids. All the other kids were Asian or white but Lena was black like me. Lena was adopted from Haiti when she was a baby. Her parents are white white white. Dutch white. When we met I didn’t have to explain to her who my “real parents” were or why I “talked so proper” or prove to her that Eve was really my sister. She just knew. And even though we went to different schools we became fast friends. In the summer we’d float side by side in the pool. Two brown islands holding hands in the water. The dogwoods looming over us like green giants. Cicadas hissing all through the leaves.

  The day we said goodbye we left the shelter of the willow and walked down to the creek at the bottom of her parents’ property.

  “Here.” Lena said handing over a bright purple composition notebook. “Write me in here and then send it to me after a month or so. Then I’ll write you back.”

  “Have you heard of an email?” I laughed.

  “Yeah yeah but this way it’s secret. Our parents won’t read it. We can email too. And when our parents finally let us get cell phones we can text.”

  I hugged her hard. “We should make some sort of promise. To be friends no matter what.” I said.

  “Ok. I like that.”

  I found two small black stones at the edge of the water. “Here. Let’s promise on these.”

  We stood holding the stones and each other’s hands. We didn’t talk. We squeezed our eyes shut and then whispered “FOREVER.” Then we threw the rocks into the creek.

  I don’t remember saying goodbye. I only remember that my whole body ached. That the climb back up to her house was much too short. And then I was leaving her for good.