Wyllah heard her cell phone tinkle beneath her head, the white top pulled up on the Firebird, Wyllah trying to catch some ZZZs before it was time for her and Deon to switch driving, the two of them heading hastily from Florida to Kentucky to visit a cousin and friends from college, both of whom they haven’t seen in years. Wyllah’s forehead was cool from the glass as she slowly straightened herself up and reached for her silver flip phone from her makeshift pillow, her bashe hemp bag.
“Hello?” Wyllah moaned into the phone, stretching as well as she could inside the cramped car, her eyes misty from sleep, Deon looking casually over at her and smiled.
“Wyllah, it’s Joel,” Joel stated, Wyllah’s eyes popping open.
“Hey buuuuddy,” Wyllah greeted him softly, turning down “Freshman” by Verve Pipe on the radio, then glancing down at her sea shell watch, “What did you wake me up at 2:17 for?”
“Oh, I figured you guys were out partying or something,” Joel confided nervously, not taking note of the time, calling on impulse. “It is Friday night.”
“We’re on our way to Kentucky,” Wyllah informed him, bopping her head to the low, mellow tune. “We’re gonna visit our cousin Nathan and some friends from college.”
“Sounds fun,” Joel responded, fidgeting with the cord to the white phone. “Umm…Wyllah, remember when I told you back in North Carolina that Benji and I thought you were-“
“I thought we already discussed this, Joel,” Wyllah sighed begrudgingly, resting her head on her clammy palm, feeling another commonplace headache approaching, Deon glancing at her curiously as she tapped her fire read fingernails against the steering wheel. “I’m sorry to tell you, but-“
“Wyllah Rae, born at 7:34AM, weighing in at 4 lbs, 6 oz., 12 inches in length,” Joel recited to her, Wyllah’s eyes instantly aggrandizing, her mouth slowly falling. She resembled someone who saw a ghost.
“You OK, Wyll?” Deon asked with concerned, flaring brake lights reminder her she was still behind the wheel, slamming firmly on the brake.
“You were a bit of a preemie,” Joel continued in a monotone drawl, “You’re real due date wasn’t until mid to late April.”
Wyllah was speechless, her mouth drawn down so low that a soccer ball could be kicked through it. All she knew, all she believed, came crashing around her ears. Wyllah brought her hand to her cheek, her eyes staring blindly in front of her. How could he know those things? Unless…
“Wyllah,” Deon called over to her more forcefully, trying to find out what Joel was telling her. “What’s wrong, Tots?”
“Joel,” Wyllah gasped, a tear escaping from her dark lashes and sliding painfully down her cheek. “It’s true?”
“I spoke to my…our mom today,” Joel informed her, dropping his eyes to the dark oak paneling on his bedroom floor. “She told me and Benji everything.”
Deon whipped the car to the side of Highway 87, their current location, the outskirts of Georgia, almost causing a collision with a few irate motorists, realizing something must be detrimental to make Wyllah, the strong one, the one whose shoulder Deon always cried on, tear. “Wyllah?” Deon spoke softly, unbuckling her seatbelt and sliding cautiously over to her, tucking Wyllah’s hair gingerly behind her ears.
“What should I do, Joel?” Wyllah whispered, biting her lip to push back the tears.
“Go home first, Wyllah Rae,” Joel told her gently, feeling guilty to cause her pain, her pain obvious in the scratchy, soft tone of her voice. “Then come to Waldorf. We need to see you.”
~*~
Later that morning, Deon turned onto Pearsall Drive, absolutely drop dead tired from volunteering to drive the rest of the way to Wyllah’s mom’s house. Deon couldn’t take Wyllah’s blank stare, Wyllah’s stoic ness about what Joel as told her. All Wyllah told Deon is that she needed to speak with her mom as soon as possible. Deon didn’t want to drag anything out of Wyllah that Wyllah didn’t want to tell. Deon also soon realized jokes and wise cracks wouldn’t even make Wyllah’s mouth twinge.
“I’ll wait here for you?” Deon asked Wyllah as Wyllah creeped the door open, stepping out to face her mother’s quaint 2 story country house, equipped with red shutters, black shingles, and a white coat of paint. Wyllah gently closed the car door, Deon shrugged but stayed put, Wyllah taking a slow walk up the brick walkway. Wyllah looked around and realized that all she had, all she knew, all she believed was a lie. None of this was hers. Wyllah had been a fake for 23 years and didn’t even know it. It made her sick to her stomach. Wyllah walked up a few brick stairs and jiggle the brass handle the white front door, it unlocked, as she expected. Wyllah creeked the door open further, the door swinging onto a long maroon rug, Wyllah’s eyes meeting with the eyes of her father. Wyllah turned her eyes angrily away, storming past the many portraits of her and her fake family. Wyllah smelt the aroma of green tea, and continued straight to the kitchen. Wyllah found her “mother” Sandy sitting at the small red and white checkered table, reading a ‘People’ magazine, sipping absentmindedly at her black coffee mug, her near-white Californian hair bobbing about her shoulders, her skin naturally dark from her golden childhood in Southern California. It all made perfect sense to Wyllah now.
“Wyllah,” Sandy gasped, nearly spilling some of the hot contents on her gray ‘Old Navy’ sleep shirt. Her face brightened like the midday sun, Sandy setting her coffee on the table and standing up from her chair, delighted to see her daughter. “It’s so good to see you! I thought it would be another 3 months before you stopped home again for some good cooking.” Sandy laughed at her own wit, enveloping her arms around her much taller daughter. When Sandy felt no reciprocation, she loosened her grip, and got speared by Wyllah’s narrowed, furious eyes.
“Honey bear?” Sandy asked wearily, reaching for her daughter’s cheek, Wyllah pushing her hand away, absolutely despising her nickname now.
“How could you lie to me all these years Mom, Sandy, whoever you are?!” Wyllah spatted angrily, clenching her fists so tight, she could feel her fingernails slicing into her muscles. Wyllah felt like an alien being, that she didn’t even know herself.
“What are you-“ Sandy tried to rebut innocently, but Wyllah cut her off.
“Don’t play dumb,” Wyllah warned her in almost a growl, beginning to pace around the yellow linoleum kitchen floor, her arms flailing like a chicken with its head cut off, her breath short, “I know I’m adopted, there’s no reason to fucking lie to me anymore. How could you?! I feel so betrayed right now.”
Sandy’s eyes began to filter into tears, feeling absolutely disgusted with herself, hoping Wyllah would never find out about her past, not until Sandy was ready and willing to tell her. “Honey, I’ve wanted to tell you. I just…never found the right time.”
“In 23 years?!” Wyllah shrieked, leaning up against the white counter, her eyes blazing into the floor, “That’s highly doubtful. Mom, if Dad couldn’t have…helped me when I was 3, what would you think for yourself right now?”
Sandy stood like stone next to the table, her left arm crossed over her stomach, biting her right thumb, a thousand needles piercing her poor heart. Sandy had no idea what Wyllah would do or say when she did find out, and Sandy figured, in some way, she deserved it.
Wyllah watched her mother like a hawk, her eyes tearing, her fingernails like hot daggers carving her palms, her anger boiling even faster with every passing second, her mother not even being able to defend her cruel actions. Wyllah’s veins felt icy cold with frozen blood, frozen love for who she thought she trusted the most.
“”I wanted a daughter so badly, Wyllah,” Sandy swooned over to her, taking hold of her hands, Wyllah’s eyes fixed on the floor, Sandy’s heart crippling as she saw Wyllah’s tears fall onto their hands. “The truth is that I am sterile. When you father and I…when we didn’t conceive after 2 years of marriage, we went to the doctors and found out that my eggs were irregular and unable to support life. We were devastated. My one dream since I was a little girl was to have that white picket fence, 2.5 children reality. Ultimately, after a few options were presented to us, we decided to adopt and found through dozens of files at the adoption agency yours. We fell in love at first sight, and contacted your birth mother. After several weeks of conversing, she told us we were the ones, and only asked to keep your name, Wyllah Rae, and not change it. We agreed, even though I was set on changing it to Amelia, after Grandma. You’re my everything, Honey Bear. I just wanted you to be all mine, not share you with anything else.”
Wyllah bore her eyes into her mothers, ripping her hands away from her mother’s grasp, her mother’s touch alien and poisonous to her, Wyllah’s face morphing into a darkly sick pink, steam nearly pouring from her ears and nose. Wyllah felt like she was a firecracker, her fuse lit and millimeters away from exploding, reigning hate onto whoever came in her path. “You are the most selfish person I’ve ever met in my life,” Wyllah leaned in and informed her mother, wanting her mother to see, to feel, to taste Wyllah’s burning anguish, her mother visably shaking from that blow. “I don’t know what to think of you right now. All I know is that, right this moment, I hate you.”
Sandy crumpled down the cabinets onto the cold floor, Wyllah furiously retreating away, her palms tingling in perverse pain, her mouth physically hurting from frowning and screaming. Wyllah swung the door open and thundered it closed, a framed picture of her and her father from Disneyworld splintering on the floor.
~*~
Deon pulled quietly in front of an abandoned tan office building, the future location of her and Wyllah’s café. She locked the Firebird and draped an old faded denim jacket over her bare shoulders. Deon spotted a black set of stairs on the right side of the building, usually used as an escape route, and followed it up to the roof. There she found Wyllah sitting on the edge of the roof, her legs dangling over, holding a half empty bottle of red wine in her hand, her eyes watery from tears, her hair tassled along her shoulder from the crisp wind.
“She lied to me, Deon,” Wyllah whispered as she heard footsteps behind her, Deon stopping briefly before crouching down next to the ledge.
“I thought I’d find you here,” Deon admitted, Deon staring nervously down at the sidewalk, having a little problem with heights.
“Everything is a lie, Deon,” Wyllah continued, the moonlight sparking against her tears, her lips dry as she ran her tongue over them and then took a swig from the bottle, Wyllah looking down and rubbing her thumb over its smooth, cool surface. “You’re not my cousin. I was adopted after I was born.”
Deon gazed at her cousin in misbelieve, her short hair wafting in the breeze, Deon settling on the dirty roof, leaning against the ledge. “Wow…that’s…quite a shock.”
“That’s quite an understatement,” Wyllah rebutted, both of the locking eyes, Deon’s eyes becoming heavy with tears.
“I know,” Deon quietly replied, a smile forming on her face as a tear slicked down her cheek. Deon wiped it away briskly, and then reached over and brushed Wyllah’s cheek, Wyllah’s expression of disappointment and utter upset not wavering.
“Did your parents know?” Wyllah asked solemnly, looking up at the blue moon as she downed some more wine.
“Not that I knew of,” Deon replied, dancing her fingers along her bare knee, “But parents have a good way of keeping secrets from us, right?”
“No shit,” Wyllah sort of laughed, her laughter felt like a rope growing tighter and tighter around her neck. “It’s just sort of surreal, you know? You think you have this relatively great life for 23 years, and then in 23 seconds, you realize you’re a completely different person.”
“You’re not a completely different person,” Deon disagreed, holding Wyllah by the shoulders of her dark green hoodie, staring into Wyllah’s lost eyes. “You just have a different mom.”
“I wish it was that simple, Dee,” Wyllah croaked like a frog, guzzling down the last of the bottle and chucking it into the empty street, listening for the shallow clash of glass and asphalt, burying her head into her wrists as the tears began to drain from her like a waterfall.
Deon physically ached to see her cousin, her best friend, is such disarray. Wyllah was hurt, and Deon didn’t know how she could help her. Deon never saw her so upset, never saw more than a few tears of Wyllah’s in her lifetime. And here Wyllah was, buzzed and crying like there was no tomorrow.
“Hey,” Deon cooed, running her fingers through Wyllah’s twisty hair, Wyllah glancing at her sideways. “There’s a beautiful word to describe why all this has happened. It’s Serendipity; fate. There’s a reason why you were brought into our lives, even if it might have been through deceit. You are the smart one, Wyllah. You’re responsible, reliable, a damn fine cook, you’re all the things I’m not. You were brought into my life to show me how much better I can be. You are the most caring, selfless person in the world, and I wished I cared half as much as you do about the dolphins and the ants and whatever the hell you care for.”
Wyllah smiled a little, her eyes dry of tears, Deon’s confession almost worth every tear that dropped from her eyes that day. “You mean all that?”
“Sure do,” Deon replied happily, snaking her hand around Wyllah’s, Wyllah cringing slightly because of her self-inflicted scars, “And one more thing, we can just sit here, wallowing in the tragedies of today, or we can hop in old Pinky, and make tomorrow so much brighter, and meet your mom.”
Wyllah gazed up at the moon, and realized tomorrow she could be a totally different person from yesterday and today, one who has an extended family and the strength to forgive. Wyllah never realized until now how intelligent Deon really was, but she didn’t want to tell her and have it go to her head. That happened a lot. “Let’s go,” Wyllah agreed, standing staggered-ly up, almost falling off the ledge before Deon whisked her back onto the roof, holding each other dramatically like actors did in old black and white movies. They both laughed, Deon leading her safely to the black ladder. “You can drive.”