Her parents had gone all out to make this a special occasion, but Alana could tell at a glance that they were scared stiff.  And who could blame them?  The letter, that damned infernal letter, was just sitting there.  Everyone tried to avert their eyes, to pretend they weren’t staring at it.  But who were they kidding?  A letter like that was a firecracker; Alana was surprised it hadn’t yet burned a hole in the table.
        She picked at her food and made an effort to show some enthusiasm for the feast.  After all, her parents had slaved over it all day.  That wasn’t unusual; they went overboard on every special occasion at the O’Neill household.  To make sure everyone’s culture got a nod, they had prepared tamales, black beans, and chicken empanadas for her younger sister, Maia; shrimp in spicy black bean sauce, dumplings, and egg drop soup for her, and steak and Guinness pie with boiled potatoes to mark her parents’ Irish heritage.  It was a bit over the top, but that’s what happens when a staunch Irish family adopts kids from Guatemala and China.
    
Most of the time, Alana went crazy at one of her parents’ exalted feasts. But not today.  Not with that letter sitting there as if it were a nuclear bomb, a hair trigger away from blowing their lives to kingdom come.  It seriously made her skin crawl.  She didn’t want to be within a thousand miles of that letter when it came time to open it; and she saw that she wasn’t alone.  Her mom’s eyes kept blinking; they always did when she was nervous.  And her dad couldn’t stop twisting his napkin into a tight little rope.
        None of them were eating either.  Maia couldn’t stop bouncing up and down long enough to pick up her fork.  It was her letter; ever since its arrival earlier this afternoon, she’d wanted to dig her grubby little fingers into it.  She would have, too, if Mom hadn’t held her back and insisted on having this special dinner to “celebrate.”
        Finally, Maia couldn’t take it anymore.  In a squeak of a voice, she said, “Mom, can I open it now?  Can I open it?  Can I?  Can I?”
        Alana glanced at her mom.  This was the moment they’d all been dreading.  Alana guessed from her mom’s glazed expression that the “special dinner” was just an excuse to put off having to open the letter right away.  But the hoax was up, and with a grim nod, Mom mumbled, “Yes, dear.”
    
Maia practically threw herself on the letter, but her hands were shaking so badly that she had trouble getting it open.  As Alana stared at her sister, her fingers fumbling over the envelope, time seemed to stop.  Maybe she’ll never get it open, Alana thought.  Or maybe she’ll drop it, and as she leans over to pick it up, she’ll spill her grape juice all over it.
        Of course, it didn’t happen that way, and seconds later, Maia steadied her hands long enough to slip one finger under the flap and slit the envelope open.  She drew out two sheets of lined paper and unfolded them, but her eager grin quickly settled into a confused frown.  When it didn’t go away, their dad said in a half-hearted tone of voice, “What’s wrong, honey?”
        “Dad, I can’t read it,” Maia replied with a whine.  “It’s in Spanish.”
        “But you’ve been studying Spanish in school for three or four years now,” Mom pointed out.
        “Yeah, but this is really hard.  I only recognize a few words.”
        “Give it here,” Dad said gently.  He reached out a trembling hand and took the letter from Maia.  It was obvious he didn’t want to read it, but after college, he’d spent two years with the Peace Corp in Peru, and his current job as a social worker brought him into contact with a lot of Latino immigrants.  That made him the family’s resident expert in Spanish.
        Alana heard the paper rustling in his hand as he scanned the letter.  In a barely audible voice, he read:
    
My dearest daughter,
        My name is Carmela Gomez and I am
your birth mother.  I come from a town in the highlands of Guatemala, a beautiful place called Huehuetenango.  Some day, I hope that you will have the chance to see it with your own eyes, because I know you would find it beautiful, too.
        I’m not sure where to start, other than to tell you that what I did was unforgivable.  Giving you up was impossibly hard and I still hate myself for it.  But I need you to understand that, at the time, I did not have a choice.
        Ten  years ago, the soldiers came to our house.  I was teaching at a school in a nearby village.  The army found a band of rebels there and thought I was helping them, so they threw me in jail for a month.
        This is the hardest part.  While I was in prison, the soldiers mistreated me every single day.  It was such a terrible experience that I still can’t find the words to describe it.  After they let me go, I discovered that I was pregnant—with you.  I hated what had been done to me, and while you were growing inside of me, I hated you, too.  You were a reminder of what I’d been through.
        But all of that changed the moment you were born.  As soon as I saw your face, my hatred evaporated.
        Unfortunately, my parents did not feel the same way.  To them, you were also a reminder of everything terrible that the army had done to us. They demanded that I give you up, and God forgive me, I did as they asked.  I had no choice, believe me.  I was still sick from my time in jail.  I couldn’t work and I had no place to go.  So, three days after you were born, I took you to the orphanage in Hueheutenango.
        I am so sorry to have to tell you this.  I can only imagine how awful it must sound.  If you are not angry with me, I would love to hear from you, my darling.  I am married now and have a young son named Juan.  I’ve even started teaching again.  My life is better, but still not a day goes by when I don’t wish that I’d had the strength to keep you.
    
Love, Carmela
    
Alana’s dad carefully laid the letter back on the table.  For a minute, there was an eerie silence.  Then everyone was crying.  Suddenly, her parents were up and out of their chairs, rushing to throw their arms around Maia.
        Alana was numb.  She could hardly believe what she had heard.  Part of her felt sympathy for Maia, but only part of her.  The rest of her was blazing hot with anger; and watching her parents falling all over themselves to comfort Maia wasn’t helping to improve her disposition.
    
Alana crossed her arms over her chest and hummed softly.  A nameless tune, it didn’t matter what.  Anything to drown out the sound of all that pointless blubbering.  Maybe if she could ignore the crying long enough, she’d be able to keep her mouth shut and not cause yet another huge, O’Neill-style drama.  All she had to do was get through dinner in “no comment” mode.  After that, she could escape to her room and cry herself silly, maybe even take it out on a few ragged old teddy bears with her pillow.
        The only problem was that even her humming couldn’t cover up the sound of Maia’s voice.  It rang through loud and clear.
        “Oh God, Mom, oh God!” Maia cried.  “I can’t believe this.”
    
Their mom wrapped her arms around Maia and slowly stroked her back.  “I’m so sorry, honey,” she whispered.  “I’m so, so sorry.  I wish we had known earlier, so we could have prepared you for this.”
         Through loud and phlegmy sobs, Maia wheezed, “My birth dad was one of those soldiers? How could he have done such awful things?  How could he?  Oh god, I wish I’d never seen that
letter!”
        Alana felt like a high pressure hose with a kink in it.  She couldn’t believe what Maia was saying.  She sat straight in her chair, not moving; it was all she could do to keep from loosening the kink and letting her anger spew out.  Inside, within the safety of her own mind, she raged against her sister.
        You wish you’d never seen the letter?  How can you be so freaking ungrateful?  My God, if it

had come to me, I’d be grinning like an idiot, not bawling my eyes out.  I don’t believe it.  So what if your birth father was some nameless pig who
raped your mom?  So what if your grandparents threw you out on the street?  None of that matters.  Your birth mom loves you.  Not a day goes by when she doesn’t regret giving you away.  Everything else is crap.
    
The words resounded so loudly in her head that Alana thought she was shouting, screaming them to the world.  But if she had, no one took notice.  Maia was still crying, though more quietly, and her words were barely above a whisper.  Despite her preoccupation, Alana strained to hear what her sister was saying.
        “Why would my grandparents have sent me away like that?  How could they hate me so much? Was I really that terrible?”
        Their dad sighed.  “Oh honey,” he said, “please don’t think like that.  It had nothing to do with you.  You were just a baby.  Their own fears made them do it, not you.  You have to believe that.”
    
Alana struggled to hold it together.  In her mind, Maia’s question kept reverberating back and forth like a gong.  ‘Why would my grandparents send me away like that?’  How could you get a letter like this and totally miss the whole point of it? she wondered.  How could they be so blind?  Carmela’s love shone through that letter, like the sun on steroids.  Couldn’t they see that?
        Sometimes life was so unfair.  It pissed Alana off no end that Maia had received such an amazing letter when she clearly couldn’t appreciate it.  If it had come to her, she would have been dancing all around the kitchen right now.  But it hadn’t been her birth parents who had tracked the O’Neills down, had it?  It had been Carmela, and fat lot of good that had done.
    
For years, Alana had fantasized about a moment like this.  She had no idea how many times she had dreamed about running into her birth mother at the grocery store or the mall.  And she often found herself musing about the latest fantasy letter that her birth mom had sent her.  Only her fantasies hadn’t turned out exactly like she’d planned, because the letter had come to the wrong person.
        Alana studied her parents and Maia.  They were still huddled together, holding each other and crying, as if they had received the worst piece of news any of them could imagine.  Slowly, a tear began to trace a delicate path down Alana’s cheek.  She felt utterly alone.  Her past remained a blank slate, and her family was so caught up in their own little drama, that they were ignoring her.
        It didn’t used to be like this, she brooded.  Maia and I were as close as identical twins. That was the hell of it.  Before that Guatemalan attorney had written to tell them about Carmela, Maia had been her closest friend and ally. They were two girls who had been abandoned as infants, their past a complete mystery.  Now everything had changed.
        It’s like everyone’s forgotten that I exist.  For months, Maia has been in her own little world.  Even Mom and Dad walled themselves off, probably hoping the whole thing might magically disappear and everything could return to normal.  But what about me?  All this time, and not one of them has  bothered to ask me how I feel.  I bet none of them even care.
        She slumped further into her seat, trying to block out the sobbing and muffled declarations of love and sorrow coming from the other end of the table.  Using the hem of her skirt, she wiped away her tears and took a deep breath.  Alana knew she was strong.  That went with the territory when your birth parents dumped you like hers had—unceremoniously abandoning her in a crowded marketplace when she was just a few days old.  Even so, it cut her to the core that her parents had been completely oblivious to her current needs ever since they’d heard from that attorney.
        Maia can be such an ungrateful little princess at times, Alana thought.  It’s all her, her, her, her—all the time. Well, what the hell about me? Why doesn’t anyone seem to give a damn about my feelings?  I might as well not be here.  They probably wouldn’t notice if I got up and left the table.  Hell, they probably wouldn’t notice if I ran away.
    
With a rush of clarity, Alana realized what she needed to do.   She needed to get out of this house.  Right now, life on the streets seemed preferable to staying where she was.  She took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and began making a mental inventory of all the things she would need to take with her. 
        She’d just gotten to “hairbrush,” when she felt a hand on her shoulder.  It was a gentle, almost tentative touch, but to Alana it felt like an electric shock.  Still shaking with surprise, she slowly, shyly peeked over her shoulder and saw her mom standing behind her.
        Here we go.  Time to pull me onto their stage.  Time to whine and cry about ‘poor little Maia’ and her awful letter. Well, no way, no how.
    
She had almost finished composing her oh-so-gracious and witty reply—something about needing to run to the bathroom—when her mom knelt down beside her and said, “Alana, honey, I’m so sorry.  I know this must be really hard for you.  Is there anything Dad and I can do to help?”
        Her mom’s apology was so far from what Alana had expected that she had no idea how to respond.  She just sat there, staring at her mom in silence.  Part of her wanted to scream, “You could get me out of here for starters.  And while you’re at it, you could help me scour China, turning over every last rock until we find my birth mom!”
        That didn’t seem likely, though, at least not the scouring China part.  So she shook her head instead.  Her mom looked her in the eye for a long moment, as if trying to pick her way through to whatever Alana had left unsaid. Whether she found it or not Alana didn’t know, but she did lean forward to enfold her daughter in a tight hug and whisper, “Tomorrow, let’s you and me have lunch.  It’s been way too long since we spent some good time together.  What do you say?”
        Alana slowly nodded in agreement.  It wasn’t much, that simple apology and the offer of lunch that went with it.  It wouldn’t put a dent in how jealous she felt, or how pissed she was that Maia couldn’t recognize the pot of gold that had literally fallen into her lap. But at least she knew that her parents still loved her, and that had to count for something.
    
The promise of lunch out with her mom was also some small compensation for the dream that she knew would haunt her tonight. The dream of a letter, battered and torn from its long journey, covered in stamps imprinted with images of dragons and swirling with incomprehensible Chinese characters.  The letter that would
open with those magical words: “My dearest daughter…”  That wondrous, mythic letter that she knew in her heart of hearts would never escape the world of her dreams.    
 
 
                         About The Author
  
        Joshua Prokopy is a father of three children, two of whom were adopted internationally.  He has Masters Degrees in Social Work and Sociology and has spent many years working in the field of affordable housing and community development.
        Recently, however, he transitioned to life as a full-time stay-at-home dad, and decided to take advantage of the modest amount of free time now available to him to pursue a second career writing fiction for young adults.
        About choosing the writing life, he says, “Being a writer has long been one of my fantasies.  My initial inspiration, both for this story and for an adoption-themed young adult novel that I’m currently working on, came from my daughter, Margaret.  I see these stories as a tribute to all Chinese adoptees, but most especially to the one that lives closest to my heart.”
        This story is his first publication credit for fiction.
      
    
                                 Copyright © Joshua Prokopy