Scissors, Paper, Stone Read online

  We took a different trail back, further inland, and eventually came to a fire road where we walked side by side along the ruts. I inhaled the scent of wild oregano. Andy told me he was nervous about going to Vanderbilt in the fall. He had heard that law school was tough, but, more than that, he was afraid he would give in to the pressure of everyone’s expectations. All his friends, and especially our parents, assumed he would become a Wall Street attorney, whereas he was interested in starting a private practice in a small town. “I don’t want to represent insurance companies. I want to help ordinary people and have a normal life.”

  I listened, letting him talk. My brother touched my arm and pointed into the distance, to the rise of the next hill. A large, long-legged bird rose up and took wing, stroking powerfully out toward the ocean. “Is that an egret?” Andy asked, his voice hushed.

  “No, a heron.”

  We watched it turn south along the shore before resuming our walk. Min wriggled sleepily against my back in the Hike-A-Poose, making little wet noises in her throat.

  “I just don’t know if I can hold on for the next three years,” he said. “What if I end up going the corporate route? It would be easier.”

  “But you’re stronger than that, Andy. Not every law student loses his bearings.”

  “Will you tell me that in a couple of years?”

  “Yes,” I said, glancing up at him, “of course I will. Any time.”

  Andy smiled. “You live too far away, Cathy, you know that?”

  The road had turned to the sea again, and we walked on the ridge of a hill where the tall brown grass was sparser, fields falling away on either side of us. “You could live here too,” I said. “They have lawyers in California.”

  Andy laughed. “Depends on who you ask, I guess.”

  “Why? Are Mom and Pop still saying I dropped off the map?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I reassured him, even though we both knew it was a lie. In our parents’ opinion, I couldn’t even manage to do properly the one thing that was expected of me: marry a man with prospects and have lots of our own babies. But Andy wasn’t spared their judgments either; they wanted him to follow in the footsteps of his brother. Robert, being the oldest boy, was my father’s model child. He had a lucrative career in banking and a growing family. Sometimes I couldn’t believe Robert was my own brother. I couldn’t imagine anyone more different from me.

  We were silent for some time. In my head I listened to our father repeat one of his most frequent warnings. “Planning: you have to take care of the future so it will take care of you.” I wondered if Andy was hearing him too.

  “Do you remember the time Pop wouldn’t let you go on that overnight fishing trip with him and Robert and me?” Andy asked. “And you said you were old enough, and he said that wasn’t the point, and you said what was the point, and he said it was a boys-only outing. And you said that wasn’t fair, and you started to cry, and he said that was exactly why it was going to stay a boys-only trip.”

  I smiled in spite of the bitterness that memory still called up. “Yes. And I remember you stayed home with me.”

  He didn’t say anything. I looked at him again, at his thick, frowning eyebrows and the hair curling on his forehead that my friends used to tell me was cute. “You’re a good person, Andy. You won’t lose that.”

  We walked in silence for a while. When we got to a long, straight, downhill stretch of the road, he burst out, “I’ll race you,” and took off ahead of me.

  “I can’t, Andy,” I called out to him, “I’ve got Min.” I could hear her waking up, feel her shifting weight against my back. He raised a hand, waving as he raced himself to the bottom of the hill.

  Back in the house, after I fed Min, Andy sat on the closed toilet seat while I gave her a bath. I could tell by his restlessness that he was irritated every time I interrupted our conversation by crying out “Good girl!” and “Who does Mommy love best?” Min pushed and grabbed for the rubber toys floating in the warm water, not much interested in helping me as I scrubbed her with a washcloth. Kneeling on the linoleum by the side of the bathtub, I let her try to pull my glasses off. She was fascinated that week with their large brown plastic frames, but she couldn’t understand how to separate them from my face. When I was satisfied that she was clean, I lifted her from the draining tub and sat her between my legs on the bathmat. After toweling dry her slippery-wet, almond-toned body, I hugged her, rubbing my cheek lightly against her velvety one, which made her laugh. Then she raised her arms to my neck, wanting to be picked up again. I was consumed by this child, by her round cheeks and huge black eyes half-hidden beneath her lids, her open-mouthed laughter and silent, serious gaze, her ten little toes perfectly lined up, her child’s sweet breath, even her great need of me. Her clinginess moved me tremendously. I was ready to cover her in kisses, give her whatever she wanted, throw myself between her and the whole world if it would help her believe I would never give her up.

  “You haven’t answered me,” Andy said, following behind as I carried Min into her room.

  “What were we talking about?” I asked, putting out a clean diaper and laying Min down on it before fastening the pins.

  “Never mind,” Andy said. I pulled Min’s rubber pants up while she tried to chew her toes. The front door slammed. “Jonathan’s home,” my brother announced before leaving the room. I heard the plywood floor creak and then the muted tones of my husband’s and my brother’s voices as I eased Min into her footie pajamas and settled her in her crib, kissing her goodnight and humming to her until she fell asleep.

  Sitting in her darkened room, listening to her soft snoring, a wave of exhaustion poured over me. I wanted to crawl into bed myself. I would cook up a quick meal, nothing elaborate, something with fresh vegetables. I would ask Jonathan and Andy to set the dining room table this time.

  When I came into the front room, the two of them were sitting in the living room area with glasses of beer. The wood stove had been lit and was already blunting the edge of the evening’s chill. Andy’s gift to us, Meet the Beatles, was on the record player turned low. As I crossed the long room, its walls crowded with our books, I half-listened to Jonathan working himself up again about the moral corruption of the country’s political process. Andy was leaning forward, his elbows resting on his knees, his brows pulled together in a frown; it was the same look of intent concentration his face took on when my father used to lecture us, and it meant he was no longer listening. I stopped behind Jonathan’s armchair and rested my hand on his shoulder. He glanced up at me and covered my hand with his. The last song ended. The needle whispered in its groove and then the record player’s arm whirred and clicked off. I thought I heard Min upstairs, but as I listened, the house gave back only silence.

  The day before Andy’s departure, Jonathan came home early and took Min from me, kissing her nose and then kissing my forehead. I told him dinner was in the oven and that I wanted to take Andy to Limantour to watch the sun set into the ocean. Except for the drive to the airport, it would be the last time we would see each other alone for at least a year, probably longer.

  The afternoon was blustery but dry and clear. We headed down the beach toward the cliffs, away from the wind. The sand was littered with large chunks of driftwood and tangles of dark purple seaweed.

  “Remember how scared of seaweed you used to be?” Andy asked. I nodded and kicked at the damp, sandy strands with my tennis sneaker.

  He bent to pick up a clump of it. “Here, I brought you a necklace,” he said, draping it around my neck.

  “Don’t, it’s cold,” I protested, pulling the wet, slimy thing off and throwing it to the side. A shiver rippled through my body. Andy had always enjoyed teasing me. But we were adults now; it wasn’t fun anymore. He smiled at me, delighted with himself, and put his arm around my shoulder. I remembered that he would be leaving tomorrow. We walked in silence, our steps synchronizing.

  “So are you going up
to Rhinebeck or straight back to school tomorrow?” I asked. The breeze was chilly despite my wool shawl, but Andy’s sheltering arm kept me warm.

  “No, I’ll go see Mom and Pop for a night,” he answered. “They’ll want to hear how you’re doing, and if Jon’s going to go back to college and get a real job.”

  “That’s not very funny.”

  I felt him shrug. We walked on, the ocean hissing to our left. Undoubtedly, they would want to hear that Jonathan and I were having trouble; it would make them feel self-righteous, even though they had come to like Jonathan. I thought about the silences in our family, how our parents’ expectations of us had been made clear without anyone having to talk about them, and how resentful that had made me feel. There was nothing to push against, and yet my whole body seemed to ache from the effort. I decided to bring up the subject that had been bothering me all week.

  “Andy?”

  “Shoot.” He took his arm from around my shoulder and stuffed his hands in his pockets.

  I glanced at his face; his eyes were on the sand ahead. Still, it was hard to begin. “During the whole time you’ve been here, you’ve never once touched Min or addressed her directly. I know you think she’s just a baby, but you act like she isn’t there. Or like you don’t think she’s a real person.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “She’s my daughter, Andy. Why do you keep ignoring her?”

  Andy started to speak, then hesitated. “Go on,” I said. “We’ve always been honest with each other.”

  “You say she’s your daughter, but she’s not my family. You just present her to me and expect me to love her.”

  “Yes, I do,” I said. He had known I wanted to adopt children ever since one of my vacations home from college. We were taking a walk down by the stream, the fall leaves crunching under our feet. We were talking about our parents and how differently we would raise a family. I said that if I ever had kids, I didn’t want to bring more children into the world when there were already so many without homes. I had known this about myself for years. And I was dating Jonathan, who cared even less than I did about having a biological child. I had thought all men were attached to the idea of progeny, of creating another version of themselves to carry on after they were gone. At the stream, Andy had listened carefully, nodding as he kicked at piles of leaves and the stumps of dead birch trees; he had agreed with everything I said. He had even told me he admired my strong convictions. I had thought he of all my family understood Jonathan’s and my decision. I had thought he was happy for me.

  Andy’s shoulders were hunched forward, as if he were cold. He glanced out over the ocean. The fat yellow sun floated, radiant, above the dark, frothing sea. In another half hour it would be gone, extinguished by the water, the sky etched with coral light like trails of smoke.

  He wouldn’t look at me as he spoke. “Look, if you had to adopt, which you didn’t, why didn’t you at least adopt a white kid? There are loads available. I checked. American kids need homes too.”

  “What does that have to do with it?” I asked, not yet understanding.

  “Cathy, I’ve got nothing against Orientals, but you can never even pretend that she’s your own. At least a little white girl might look like you.”

  I stopped short. My little brother was talking like this? Andy? I felt as though he had just smashed a rock into the back of my head, leaving me breathless and stupid. Of course I was aware of Min’s racial difference; it was part of our reason for adopting her. But Andy was ashamed of it, and somehow that kept him from seeing her as legitimately my daughter. He kept walking a few steps, then realized I had stopped and looked back.

  “Jesus, Andy.” There was nothing more I could think of to say. I tried to breathe, tried to quell my rising panic.

  He furrowed his brow. “You asked me.”

  “Well, I didn’t want to know that,” I answered, suddenly furious, walking past him farther down the beach. He caught up with me. “For your information,” I went on, “I don’t want to pretend anything, Andy. Min is Korean. We adopted her. I don’t want it to be a secret.”

  “I’m not—”

  “Don’t interrupt me. Min will always know that she was adopted from another country. Jonathan and I will tell her everything we can about where she came from and why she’s with us. That doesn’t mean she’s any less my daughter than Robert’s kids are his.”

  “Look, you said you wanted to know my feelings. And I feel that she’s not part of you. She can’t be, Cathy. Anyone can tell you that just by looking at her. You’re born into family, and family is born to you.”

  He was shouting, and I realized I had been too. I wondered dimly what we were doing; we never fought like this. We had always defended each other.

  Andy and I had reached the end of the beach where the cliffs jutted into the ocean, blocking our way. We turned around and began walking back. Andy kicked at the sand with each step. The wind blew my hair across my face. Wearily, I disentangled it from my glasses. I swept it behind my ears and stuffed it underneath the edge of my shawl.

  “No, Andy, that’s the whole point. Family is who you choose. I chose Jonathan. And I chose Min.”

  “Terrific. So where does that leave me?”

  “Oh, Andy, where do you think?”

  What did he imagine, that creating a new family meant I was shedding my old one the way snakes left behind a worn-out skin? Why couldn’t he change too? I was tired of taking care of him, tired of his insistence that he still needed me to lead the way. All that energy was with Min now. I stopped walking and turned toward him, peering up into his face. He stared at the ground. His jaw was clenched; I could see a muscle spasm in his cheek. I was trying very hard not to cry.

  “You have to accept Min eventually,” I told him. The muscle jumped, subsided. “You have no choice.”

  Andy gave the sand one more kick for good measure, then turned and walked down to the edge of the water, his hands still in his pockets. Just like Pop, I thought. Just walk away. I stood where I was, immobile. I had wanted to be able to change, to escape the ingrained behaviors that moved, as if through our blood, from one generation to the next. Would I pass onto Min a particular trait? How to tear down the people you love most; the lonely mastery of how to stand alone? I didn’t want to think anymore about the forms of inheritance.

  The sun had set without our noticing. The horizon looked like a bruised peach. Above us the sky stretched wide, a canopy of deepening purple. The wind was still up, and chillier. I wrapped my arms around myself and watched Andy below me. Near his feet the ocean was relatively calm, lapping in small waves. I felt numb, unreal. He ran his hand through his hair. As I started to walk down to him, he turned around to look for me.

  “Look,” he said, pointing down as the sea washed away again.

  “What? I can’t see.”

  He stepped forward and stooped to pick up something half buried in the sodden sand. He held it out to me on his palm. It was a starfish, all five of its arms intact. I touched it, stroking a bristly arm. It was soft, although it didn’t move. I thought it might still be alive.

  “Shouldn’t we throw it back in?” I asked.

  “It’s too late,” Andy said. “They can grow back a missing arm, but they still dry out from exposure. Do you want it?”

  I shivered. “No, you keep it, unless you have a million already.”

  “I’ve only seen them on the ocean floor. Finders keepers?”

  He closed his fingers over the starfish as if he had a right to it, as if it were already his. I imagined it stranded among his possessions, on a bureau or coffee table, brittle and exotic and alone.

  Maybe he was right to question my adopting Min, but not for the reasons he had given me. “Sure,” I agreed, looking out at the darkening sea. “Finders keepers.”

  Andy’s plane left early the next morning. We were out of the house by the time Jonathan got up to take his shower. This time I brought Min in the Chevy with us to the airport. My
brother and I didn’t speak during the drive down. There was nothing left to say.

  At the boarding gate we sat silently, waiting for the plane to come in from Honolulu. I was sure he wouldn’t leave without making some effort at reconciliation. I knew him that well, at least. I sat Min on my lap and let her play with my colored glass beads, taking them from around my neck and giving them to her when she pulled too hard. Andy bought a pack of Wrigley’s gum. He pulled open the string at the end and offered me a stick. I took it without looking up. The sweet minty flavor flooded my mouth, reminding me of a time when we were much younger and nothing was as painful as this silence.

  Then he was leaving, moving slowly toward the open door with the other passengers, kicking his overnight bag along the floor ahead of him. I stood with him, holding Min on my hip with both arms, alert to any hint of agitation in her as she gazed out at the large airplane. One of the stewardesses took Andy’s ticket, returned the boarding pass. “Only passengers beyond this point,” she told me. I had to say something. I couldn’t bear to have him leave like this.

  “Would you at least kiss her goodbye?” I asked Andy. “You’re her uncle.”

  “Why did you call her Min?” he asked.

  I was relieved by the question, thinking he had begun to accept her. It was the first time he had referred to her by name.

  “Because that’s what her mother called her in the note she was found with. Min-Jung.”

  “You see?” he said, smiling and wagging his finger at me. “You said ‘her mother.’ She’s not really yours.”

  “Oh, grow up, will you?” I snapped, more loudly than I intended. I saw him flinch. Then he turned away, picked up his bag, and walked out onto the tarmac toward the waiting plane.

  As soon as he was gone, I wondered what had happened. I felt disoriented, confused, as though I had been set down in a strange city. Then I understood that nothing had happened; Andy had left without making any effort to apologize, without even saying goodbye. I felt the sharp sting of tears fill my eyes.