EverWorld (Book 3 of the Down World Series)

Chapter Four

Aunt Amalia was born three years before my mother.

Her birth had taken place at abuela's home in Mexico, and according to family lore, she's the reason abuela was subsequently exiled. It wasn't that abuela had gotten pregnant; lots of girls did that. It was that she had refused to marry the father. So at eighteen years old, with little Amalia in a woven basket on her lap, abuela and her young boyfriend had hitched a ride with a family friend to Albuquerque for summer jobs harvesting chiles. She never went back to Guadalajara. That was 1977.

The boyfriend eventually did go back, though, after Mom was born in 1980. He got married and had three or four more children. Mom never met any of them, and never knew him at all.

Abuela lived near us in a little apartment until her death from colon cancer when I was seven. Her illness happened quickly. She was there one day; then she wasn't. I saw her only one time in the hospital. No te olvides de donde viniste was the last thing she told me.

Don't forget where you came from.

By that time, Aunt Amalia had been living in Boston for over six years, after nearly a decade of living every other place she could think of. She came back for the funeral, but left early the next morning. That was the first time I ever saw Mom and Amalia in the same place. Both in their black, short dresses, their hair thick and dark like mine, their sunglasses covering their brown eyes despite the overcast day.

When I saw them standing together, I briefly thought they looked like twins, despite Amalia's head hovering a couple inches above Mom's—their grief obscured behind those dark glasses, their long slender arms stacked side by side. I saw them hold hands for only a moment as abuela was lowered into the ground. But then Amalia broke away.

Sitting in Aunt Amalia's pristine, sprawling Cape Cod-style home in the outskirts of Boston, waiting for her to return with the cup of tea she had offered me, I couldn't help but look around at the carefully decorated walls for any sign of our family history: a photograph, maybe, or one of the little hand-sewn Mexican dolls abuela used to give us for Christmas.

But there was nothing. The house had been professionally decorated, apparently, with lots of tasteful paintings of the sea and some of Amalia's late husband's German family heirlooms. His collection of ancient beer steins lined the fireplace mantle like stout little soldiers. Amalia returned to the room, her highlighted hair all but erasing anything Mexican-looking about her features, and placed the tea down on two coasters before us.

It was like she had recast herself in a play. She was no longer the long-lost daughter from a refugee home; she was a white lady in a fancy house, serving tea from porcelain English cups. In that way, I guess she wasn't so different from abuela, or Mom, or even me. Shedding our skins, reinventing ourselves when our old lives no longer fit.

We are all of us runaways.

"The truth is," she said, after blowing on her tea to cool it, "I don't remember much. You know I left town at sixteen."

"Yes, I know. My mom told me you got your GED early."

"Yeah, what else did she say?"

"That you were wild," I said with a smile, my eyes landing briefly on a Van Gogh coffee-table book that I would bet good money had never been opened. "Got a fake ID, left with a boyfriend to go to Lollapalooza, and never came back."

Amalia blushed, and for the first time today I could see the resemblance to my mother loud and clear. They had the same oddly straight little teeth. "Don't remind me. That boyfriend didn't last a week. I had to get myself a new one once I got to the concert."

I smiled into my tea. Since Amalia had suggested having these little meet-ups in September, I had started to get used to her saying things like that about men. They were something to be picked up or dropped off, like luggage.

The husband who'd left her this house had been a married politician when she'd met him during a brief acting stint in New York. He ditched his wife for her, then died eight years later in a plane crash. It had been quite a scandal at the time. He'd had his mistress with him on the Cessna, some 22-year-old aspiring Romanian model, and his blood-alcohol level had been off the charts.

"Oh, I forgot your sugar," Amalia said, her manicured hand actually grazing her shocked chin at the realization.

"It's okay, it's good like this."

Robbie and I—that is to say, the original Robbie and I—had visited Boston only once when we were kids, right after the husband had died and she'd inherited all the money. This was maybe six months after abuela's funeral, at which Mom and Amalia had decided to "reconnect."

But when we got here, it was awkward and strained from the start. I think Amalia, who didn't seem to need any comforting, had only wanted to show off the house to my mom. Clearly, a little childhood competition still lingered between them. I remembered only a handful of things from the trip—how cold the Atlantic Ocean was, how we weren't allowed to go in the basement, the master bedroom, the formal sitting room, or, strangely, the pantry in the kitchen. I guess snacking was one of the house no-nos.

Of course, the Amalia sitting in front of me now didn't remember that trip at all. In the reality that she remembered, Mom had abandoned me with Dad when I was five, choosing to remain in Portland to raise Robbie with her ex-boyfriend John. What Amalia didn't know—what no one knew except me—was that John was probably Robbie's real father.

"So, yeah, I left at sixteen," Amalia continued. "I only met her a couple of times, but I remember it was a big deal that she was there."

"Why?" I asked, putting down my tea.

"Well..." she shrugged. "She was young, first off. Looked almost like a student herself. And—I hate to even say this, but, well, it was the '90s."

"Okay."

"You know, things were tense. You think the town is hostile to Mexicans, you should see how they reacted to her showing up."

I nodded, staring at my feet. I didn't need to ask for any more details. Our town was still overwhelmingly white, and it hadn't escaped my attention during my time at East Township that they mostly seemed to like it that way.

"But I do remember one thing, now that you ask."

"What's that?"

"It's strange, I haven't thought about this in years. We were sitting in the cafeteria one day, my friends Liz and Meg and I. And she walked in and started scanning the room, like she was looking for something, or someone. And her eyes landed right on mine."

I leaned forward, waiting for Amalia to continue. I could see the muscles tensing in her neck as she recounted the story.

"And she got this little smile on her face, and just stared at me for a second. And that's when I knew."

"Knew what?"

"That Elaheh Farghasian is not who she says she is."

***

To clear up any confusion, I should note that in the published version of Down World (available in March!), Robbie's parentage is revealed. In the first draft, it is implied that John might be his father, but in the final draft it is explicitly stated. And for the rest of the changes, you'll have to buy the book! :)

Okay, guys, I can't wait to hear your theories about Principal Farghasian! Tune in next Friday for more. Xo, Rebecca