“Holy crap,” Pinky whispered. “And my biological dad…?”
Meera Mausi sighed. “It had been a one-night stand. As I remember, your mom had reached out to him to let him know she was pregnant, that she was keeping the baby, and he could choose to be as involved as he wanted to. He never returned her phone call.”
Pinky felt a shot of anger at her sperm donor. “Asshole.” And on the heels of that, a thought: Why hadn’t her mom just told her this? Because the knowledge of being the product of a one-night stand might mess Pinky up? Or because she was hiding the fact that she’d been exactly like Pinky not that long ago?
“Pretty much. But your mom…” Meera Mausi looked off into the distance for a moment. “She went through this transformation, almost overnight. Our parents were livid, you know. They accused her of being selfish, of never doing the right thing, of only looking out for herself, of derailing her future—”
“Gee,” Pinky said sarcastically. “Sounds familiar.”
Meera Mausi gave her a look. “Take your mom and multiply it by about a thousand. They harangued her day and night. I tried to talk to them, but they refused to listen.”
Pinky knew her mom’s parents were not nice people, which was why they didn’t really have a relationship with Pinky. But she’d never been told it had anything to do with her. “You said Mom underwent a transformation?”
Meera Mausi went around and sat on a barstool, and Pinky sat next to her. “Your mother changed her personality overnight. It was radical. I mean, she cut off all her hair and dyed it back to its natural color, she began dressing much more conservatively, she began this super-nutritious diet when she’d been known to eat Doritos for breakfast. But more than that, she decided she was going to go to law school. I’d never heard about her ambitions to become a lawyer before, but when I asked her about it, you know what she said?”
Pinky shook her head.
“She said, ‘I want to give this kid the best start in life I possibly can, Meera. And if that means doing something I’d never considered before, then so be it.’ I’d never seen her so focused, so… committed. It was like she aged ten years the minute she took that pregnancy test.”
“Wow.” Pinky sat back, thinking. “She went to law school for me?”
“Yes. I think just about everything your mom’s done since then has been for you. It took poor Howard ages to convince her that he was good enough to spend time with you.” Meera Mausi chuckled, but Pinky found she couldn’t laugh along with her. Suddenly, her heart felt very, very heavy.
“So… I was responsible,” she said, the truth weighing her down like a ton of cement blocks. “I was the reason Mom changed. That she became… the way she is.”
Meera Mausi leaned forward. “Oh, sweetie, no,” she said, putting a hand on Pinky’s back. “It’s not a bad thing. I don’t think she’s regretted a single moment—”
“Of course she has!” Pinky’s voice was harsher than she’d meant it to be. She looked at Meera Mausi through a veil of tears. “No wonder she hates me! I’m the reason she had to give up all her goals. I’m the reason she had to strip all the color, all the personality from her life. Don’t you see? She’s never forgiven me for it.”
“Pinky—”
Pinky held up a hand and took a deep breath. “Meera Mausi, thank you for telling me this,” she said, forcing her voice to be calm. “And please don’t tell Mom you told me. Okay?”
Meera Mausi looked anguished. “I don’t think I should keep this from her. She’ll want to know how you’re feeling.”
“Please, Meera Mausi,” Pinky said, trying to convey with her eyes just how important this was to her. “Please. Just… give me some time to process this, okay?”
Meera Mausi nodded, as Pinky had known she would. She was using her language. “All right, honey.” She squeezed Pinky’s hand. “All right.”
* * *
“Okay, it’s time.” Samir was standing in her doorway, carrying two chair cushions and a book.
Pinky looked up from her art journal, in which she’d been doodling a volcano spewing giant butterflies. She was still in her pajamas, though it was noon the next day. “Huh?”
“It’s time.” Samir raised his eyebrows meaningfully.
Did they have an appointment she didn’t remember? “Time for what?” she asked.
“Time to get you out of this funk.” He walked in and stood by her desk. “I’m kidnapping you.”
“What makes you think I’m in a funk?”
“Well, I’ve been in here for almost a full minute and you haven’t said anything salty to me yet.”
Pinky felt a smile touch the corner of her lips. “Can’t argue with that. Where are we going?”
“It’s a surprise. Do kidnappers ever tell you where they’re taking you?” Samir said, in a tone that implied it should’ve been obvious. “But first you have to get dressed.”
Pinky groaned. “Do I have to?”
“Yes,” Samir replied immediately. “You do.” A pause. “Come on.” He bumped her lightly with one of the cushions. “It’ll be fun. And bring a book.”
Shaking her head, curious in spite of herself, Pinky got up to get dressed.
He insisted on driving her parents’ rented BMW, which Pinky didn’t think they’d mind; Samir was as careful a driver as you’d expect. When he pulled up to the butterfly habitat, she turned to him. “What are we doing here?”
He put the car in park and grinned. “Come on.”
They walked to the big oak tree they’d climbed on their previous trip here. “We’re going up there”—Samir pointed up into the branches—“to read.”
Pinky smiled and shook her head. “Because I told you I liked to read up there. But what about your acrophobia?”
“Well, maybe this time we don’t go quite so high. Also, I brought these.” Samir held up the chair cushions. “We can sit on them. I’m hoping to trick my brain into thinking I’m sitting on a chair on solid ground.”
Pinky laughed. “That’s actually not a bad idea.”
He gestured to the tree trunk. “After you.”
CHAPTER 16 Pinky
Once they’d tied Drama Queen around the tree trunk at the bottom and were situated on a branch that was both thick enough and low enough to appease Samir, he leaned back and opened his book.
“We’re just reading?” Pinky asked, touched and surprised. “You’re not going to ask me what happened?”
Samir looked at her over the top of his book. “I figure when you’re ready to talk about it, you’ll talk about it.”
She nodded and, after a pause, opened her book.
* * *
She closed it again after a couple of minutes. “I want to talk,” Pinky said softly. Maybe it was being up here, above the whole world, hidden by leaves and twigs and branches, that made her feel braver. Maybe it was Samir’s steady, open friendship. Maybe it was the fact that she’d found out her mom had been lying to her her entire life, that things she’d taken to be formative truths had turned out to be complete lies. Whatever the reason, Pinky felt she needed to be completely truthful in this moment, and she needed to be completely truthful to someone who was strong enough to hold the truth without judgment.