Chapter 29 - THE FAMILY TREE
The assignment came home on a Monday.
MY FAMILY TREE.
Claire stared at the paper long enough for Lily to notice.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You did the face.”
“What face?”
“The complicated face.”
Mara, who had come for dinner, laughed from the kitchen. “She does have one.”
Claire handed Lily the worksheet. It contained a simple tree with spaces for mother, father, grandparents and siblings. There was no box for adoptive mother and birth mother. No space for dead biological father, living adoptive family, erased identity, restoration orders or guardianship agreements.
Claire hated the worksheet on principle.
Lily loved markers.
She started drawing.
At the bottom she wrote LILY.
Above herself she drew two branches.
MOM CLAIRE.
MOMMA MARA.
Claire said nothing.
Above Mara she wrote DAD JONATHAN and then frowned.
“That’s wrong,” she said.
Mara leaned closer. “What is?”
“He shouldn’t be above you like he’s your dad.”
Claire laughed.
Lily erased him and drew Jonathan beside Mara instead. Then she added Beatrice above Jonathan, Claire’s parents on another branch, and several cousins she actually liked. The page became unreadable within ten minutes.
“There isn’t enough tree,” Lily complained.
Claire looked at Mara.
Mara said, “Use the back.”
Lily did.
By the end, arrows ran everywhere. She added a dotted line between Evelyn and Lily and explained that they were both her, “but not at the same time exactly.” Claire did not correct the theology of identity.
The next afternoon Lily came home irritated.
Her teacher had asked whether she wanted help making the tree “more traditional.”
“What did you say?” Claire asked carefully.
“I said no.”
Mara looked proud enough to become dangerous.
Lily continued. “Then Connor said people can’t have two moms unless they’re married.”
Claire closed her eyes.
“Of course Connor did.”
“What did you say?”
“I said he only has one mom and she still forgot his lunch twice.”
Mara laughed so hard she had to sit down.
Claire tried to look serious.
Failed.
That evening Lily taped the family tree above her desk beside the two photographs from chapter fifteen of her life: Claire outside the courthouse and Mara with Jonathan at the NICU window. The replica nameplate remained in its box.
Claire looked at the chaotic page.
“What name did you put at school?”
Lily pointed.
At the bottom she had written:
LILY GRACE MORGAN
Underneath, smaller:
EVELYN ROSE HOLLOWAY
Claire felt something shift.
“You wanted both?”
May you like
Lily shrugged. “It’s my tree.”
That was answer enough.
