How long have I needed to sneeze? It feels like it will happen any moment now. But it hasn’t happened yet. As inconvenient as it may be to sneeze over dinner, that itching, prickling feeling of imminent sneeze is the worst part. Its probably been five minutes, maybe 12. Seems like 200. The relief that comes when I finally sneeze and it is over!

That’s what Mom looked like when she finally told me about my real origins as a dead kid’s mark II. My mom’s name is Evelyn now. It used to be Ashley Evelyn Rodriga. My dad was Alphonso Rodrigo but I guess he died the day I was shoved into this life. The day Evelyn actually met me. She looked like she could stop pinching her nose and waiting. She could have just let go and told me. She should have.

For the last 16-some-odd years, I’ve been raised by Evelyn. I collected rubber duckies and cowboy stuff for a long time. When we moved into a house the wallpaper was lassos and bulls and calves. I would go there and rub over the pencil marks where my growth was documented, as if it mattered.

I just can’t go back.

 

“Everything is in here. Here’s cash. I love you, Sadie, but you can’t come back.” All in a rush, that’s what she told me. Those 3 sentences were the last things I heard from her.

I had evening classes at the local university. I got back a little late, catching up with an old friend, Sam. At first I thought maybe she was mad at me for that, that’s why the porch light wasn’t on and she was waiting for me in the dining room as soon as I walked in the door. That’s what the data rationalised, I guess. “Worried single mom.” Not, “You can never have the life you thought you had before your 6pm.”

I hadn’t even set down my keys when she shoved an envelope and a lavendar backpack I’d had in middle school at me. I thought the one-strap backpacks were so cool for a time, and this one had all the space for the books I read in my free time--I kept a different “leisure” book for each class subject. It was stuffed so full I stumbled back with an “oomph.” Then she spun me around before I could recover and shoved me back out the door, shut it quiet as mouse. When I turned to let myself back in, it was locked.

“Mom?” I said quietly.

No response.

“Mom!” I used the whiny, come-on-I’m-your-kid-here voice I’d had since age two and a half.

I heard her crying on the other side of the door.

“...Mom?” She cried harder.

There’s a curve under the door, on the left, from where the wood is warped. I spun back around. I could slide my USB cord under there, try to slide it up the wall. Stumbled down the front step. Get it caught on the lock to turn it. Absently threw the bag over my shoulder and head. Could climb on top of the garage from my car. My eyes focused on the keys in my hand as I walked the same path I had thousands of times. Squeeze into the chimney like Santa Claus. I could still hear her, just barely, as I got back into my small silver Chevrolet. Kick the couch out of the way from the fireplace we never used. I could think of half a dozen ways to get back into the house, crawl into my bed, and sleep. But my mom had just kicked me out of my house, given me the backpackful of things I’d paid for with my own money I was guessing, and I wasn’t allowed back in her life.

So I drove.

 

I drove east, back toward the university, the first route that came to mind. I passed the uni, stopped to get gas, and wound up at the Starbucks across the street from the gas station. I didn’t feel anything but a vague, numb coldness that seemed… familiar, but I couldn’t think of how. My mom had always been my best friend, and we’d never fought--even when I snuck out at 15 to see an eclipse. She’d never done anything like this.

I’d put the backpack on the passenger seat, at some point. My school bag, too. I dragged the out-of-fashion bulk into my lap and stared at it in the parking lot. I opened the smallest pockets first and worked my way through it.

A USB drive with “SADIE” written on a piece of masking tape, fading but fairly recent. How long was she planning to kick me out? She said she was fine with me staying at home through college… Some pictures from my vanity mirror. MP3 player, a couple favorite books, the first rubber ducky in my collection--with the cowboy hat and faded initials under the tail--the only plushie I’d kept through the years, Mr. Garry. He was a rabbit that used to be white but was now a bluish gray.

Opening the main compartments stopped me cold. So cold my fingers trembled as I took out a manilla folder, set the bag aside, and held it in my lap for a long, long time. A thousand terrible fates sprinted through my mind.

Was I adopted? Were we illegal immigrants and the college had found out? Did she have cancer? Did I have cancer? Was Dad actually a secret agent and this is what really happened? I’d always thought about that one. I always remembered him as a doctor but mom said he was a security guard too, not “that kind of doctor.”

I got the nerve to open the folder and find out Dad’s code name. But the first thing I saw was the faded, blue-bordered birth certificate for me. There was my name… and Mom’s name… and Dad’s name, too. I wasn’t adopted, so why was this here? I slid my birth certificate out of the way of my birth certificate.

That sentence couldn’t be right.

But under my birth certificate, was another. Still Sadie, but other parents, other names. And under that, another. Then the names changed more, and it was Elizabeth Sadie, or Sarah Anne, or Allura Sadie. Behind the forgeries was an opaque pencil case with gift cards to department stores and online shops, and ID cards matching the names. The photos were all from my junior high school year, when Evelyn had another of her “practice photo shoots” and had me pose in front of a white sheet two dozen times. Like I needed to practice for school photos anymore.

What the fuck could be on that USB drive?

 

20 minutes later, I closed my laptop. It was close to dying anyway. The USB had text documents, ranging from .txt to .docx. Photos, all the ones we never kept in photo albums and some I’d never seen before. And one, single, five minute video renamed “WATCH ME FIRST” sometime today. The video where she gave a quick rundown of where I came from, and looked like she had finally sneezed, and blew her nose a lot, and spoke quietly. Like someone was trying to listen in.

“Listen. Sweetie, Sadie, I love you. I’m so, so sorry it came to this. I--I love you.

“They came today. The… I don’t know, it could have been anyone. I thought it was the cops, but the pant legs were too short and--and it doesn’t matter, they came when you should have been home and you could get home any minute and thank God you were studying or something instead. They gave me some bullshit,” my eyes widened at the uncharacteristic swear, “about you running from a party and drugs fell out of your pocket but they didn’t catch you. But I know you and they didn’t know anything about you, Sadie.

“I lied and I think they believed me. I said you were 19 and going to college but weren’t living at home anymore. They looked at your room and our frigging dishes from breakfast and I told them you’d been visiting but had class tonight and couldn’t stay and that was true enough, right? I--I’m not a spy, I’m not built for this honey, I don’t know if they have the computer tapped or if they’re watching the house or if they put a tracker on my car, nothing.”

Most of the video was her dirty rendition of my origin story of toddler-turned-cyborg. How she was flying on the seat of her pants for two years while she figured out how I wasn’t just a normal kid, and tried to make my memories match up to her lies about our shared past, and found out everything she could about what happened before her husband died and I came to life.

“I raised you as my own daughter, and that’s what you are, Sadie. You’re my little angel, and no matter what happens to me, that won’t change. You were raised with love, and with stories of your father--you’re his kid too. Not those people who did this to you. I love you Sadie.” She kissed her fingers and held them up to the camera. The video ended.

I didn’t have the willpower to look at everything else on the USB. I grabbed both of my bags, put some of the cash in my wallet like it had been there since pay day, and walked into the 24 hour Starbucks for a hot chocolate.

“Are you okay?” the barista asked. He looked like he should be in a clothing magazine. I liked his mustache.

“My parents are dead and I just found out I was adopted,” I deadpanned.

He put whipped cream and sprinkles on my drink without me asking. Maybe it wasn’t because of him, but no one bothered me as I stared at nothing, listened to old music on my iPod mini and trying not to cry. I stopped trying after two hours. Just tried to be quiet instead.

I wished she hadn’t sneezed after all this time.