The Lost and the Found Read Free Page B

exactly the right thing to say to get Mom out of the house—she won’t want Dad to get there first.
    The good-byes are awkward. Mom seems to have remembered that hugging Michel is not the kind of thing she does, and she doesn’t seem to know what to say to me. The moment is too big, so she settles for kissing me on the cheek and telling me she loves me.
    “I love you, too, Mom. I hope…” Now it’s my turn to leave a sentence hanging in the air. Mom just nods as if she knows exactly what I wanted to say. But she doesn’t.
    I hope it’s really, truly, definitely her. I hope she recognizes you after thirteen years even though I have my doubts. I hope you don’t die in a terrible car crash on the way to the police station. I hope things are going to change around here but not
too
much. I hope you don’t forget all about me once you’ve got your perfect daughter back.
    Maybe the sentence
was
finished after all: I hope.
    —
    Michel drives carefully—both hands on the steering wheel, checking his mirrors all the time. I always feel safer in his car than I do in Dad’s. “How are you doing,
ma chérie
?” Michel knows that I like it when he speaks French, so he indulges me once in a while.
    I close my eyes and listen to the traffic. How
am
I doing? An hour and a half ago, I had a pretty good idea how this weekend was going to play out: the exhibition with Michel; meeting up with Dad for a café lunch; baking in the afternoon; takeout and film tonight; an early start on Sunday morning and off to the food market with Michel, where he miraculously transforms into the most French person you could ever imagine (wearing a beret, for crying out loud), ramping up the accent and charming all the women into buying our (admittedly amazing) macarons; back home on Sunday evening to slump in front of the TV with Mom.
    The routine of the weekend is comforting to me. Michel and Dad’s place feels like
home.
I’d have asked to move in there full-time if I hadn’t known it would break Mom’s heart. Plus I’m pretty sure Dad wouldn’t be all that keen on having me around all the time. Being a weekend dad suits him perfectly, I think.
    I was eleven years old when my parents got divorced. Apparently, most kids are upset when their parents split up, but I wasn’t. I don’t remember crying at all. Not even when Dad drove away with his car packed full of his belongings. Mom still finds it strange that I didn’t react how a normal kid would (should) react. You’d think she’d be relieved that I wasn’t upset. Surely it showed that I was remarkably well adjusted for my age, understanding and accepting that my parents could never be happy together after what had happened to Laurel.
    Dad’s bisexual—always has been, as far as I know. Mom knew that he was bi when they met in college and fell “head over heels in love with each other.” The only reason I know this is because she talked about it in an interview a few years ago. Dad was
not
happy about that. She was on a mission, though—a mission to set the record straight. So many awful things had been written about them both—and about Dad in particular ( LAUREL ’ S DAD IN GAY ROMP ! )—that she wanted to tell the truth. The papers always say he’s gay—they never bother to get it right. And back then they said that he pretended to be straight and lured my mother into marrying him because he was desperate to have children. For a while the media was obsessed with the fact that Laurel was adopted. They wanted to know WHY.
    I was a miracle baby. Something to do with a very low sperm count (gross) on Dad’s side and something wrong with Mom’s ovaries. The chances of them conceiving naturally were minuscule. Technically I shouldn’t even exist. I often wondered how they
really
felt about that. Mom usually sticks to the whole “miracle baby” spiel, saying how blessed she and Dad felt to have two beautiful daughters. I’ve never asked her for the real story because I