SOPHIE
"With all this talk about family trees, I've gotten an idea," said Mr. Newton, "For today's assignment I want you all to complete and submit a diagram of your own family tree."
"Em, are you coming to the Berry Bar after school?" Alicia asked, ignoring the piece of paper set on her desk.
"Yeah," Emma said, twirling her pencil in her fingers. "After we pick up Jonathan from kindergarten."
"You may start on your projects," said Mr. Newton. "When you're finished, I want you to bring them up to me."
"What are we doing, anyway?"
"Weren't you paying attention," said Bri, filling in the blanks.
Alicia picked up her writing utensil from the table, swatting her messy cinnamon hair away from her eyes. "No, not really."
"We're working on a family tree." I sat back, pulling my worksheet from the table and showed it to Alicia. It was a strange, twisted tree with big, green leaves, and on each leaf was an empty box with a title below, labeled in big, block letters. "We're supposed to fill them out for parent night," I sighed, staring at it but made no movements to start it. To me, this was yet another reminder of the loss of my birth parents. After I was adopted by Ms Morgan, I allowed her to take up both roles. Her family soon became my family.
I bit down on the metal cap of my pencil, scraping my chair forward as I stared at the blank titled 'mother'.
So who do I decide?
Before I could start, the bell rang. "If you haven't finished, you may take them home. If so, please place them on my desk on your way out."
The other kids jumped from their seats, stuffing pens and pencils as well as their paperwork in their bags, overturning their chairs in a scramble to get out.
I frowned, hiking my bag higher on my shoulders, and followed the girls as I strode out of the classroom. We wandered down the narrow halls, shying away from the big kids who crowded around us.
"This is so exciting!" Alicia exclaimed as we walked down the hall, meeting up with Charlotte.
"Yeah it is," Bri agreed. "I've been meaning to ask my parents about our family."
"Actually," Charlotte said, stopping by her locker to exchange books. "If you want to know more about your family you can go to the school's library and look up your family's history on the new computers."
"I don't know much about my real folks besides their names," Emma told us. "So it's worth a shot."
"I'm in," Alicia exclaimed before suggesting, "We should go after class."
"Soph?"
"Er...I-um, have some other homework to catch up on, but I think I'll be fine on my own."
"Ok," said Emma. "We'll see you girls later then."
We agreed and went off in separate directions.
Austin stopped by to pick me up after school and later agreed to take up mom's offering and stay for dinner.
I kicked my legs under the table, staring down at the clumps of chicken and pasta on my plate. Austin sat across from me, shoulders squared as he cut his chicken into square pieces. To my left, Mom propped her head up on the heel of her hand, staring between me and her brother.
"So...Austin," said Mom, "how was work?"
"The usual," he told her before popping a piece of chicken in his mouth. Then sparked up a grin, staring at me. "How about you, Soph?"
I shrugged.
"Sophie?"
I glanced up from my barely touched dinner, dropping the fork, causing it to clatter against the plate.
"Yes?" I spoke softly, avoiding eye contact.
"How was school?"
Again I shrugged, mumbling a small 'Okay' and hung my head.
"You've been awfully quiet," said Austin. "I think I brought the wrong kid home. What do you think, Sis? Is she an imposter?"
"She must be. I know my Sophie isn't this quiet. Maybe I should take her back and demand my real child."
Cracking a smile, I giggled. "It's me."
"Are you sure?" asked Austin.
I nodded, my smile growing wider.
"Well, then, why are you quiet? Did something happen at school today that you aren't telling me?"
The smile fell from my face and I dropped my head again, mutilating my perfectly-cut chicken pieces.
"Nothing," I told her.
"Are you sure?"
"We did family trees in class today," I said, my jaw trembling as I gripped at my fork and knife. "It's due by tomorrow."
Mom and Austin looked at each other from across the table, their eyes unreadable, but they had that look that grown ups get sometimes.
"Guess that's my cue," said Austin as he cleared out the kitchen, leaving only mom and I at the table.
"So that's what's bothering you," mom said, looking over at me for confirmation as I nodded my head. "Go get your paper, then, and we'll sort this out."
I climbed out of my chair and disappeared through the dining room entrance. Moments later, I re-entered and scrambled back into my chair, pushing my paper out to Mom who glanced down at it.
All the boxes connected to the 'MOTHER' box were blank, whereas the father's side was completely filled. I finished his part during math class. It was considerably easy for me, considering that I did only have one dad.
I frowned, tapping my pen on the table as I regarded the blank spots on my tree.
Mom must have noticed, because she then moved in closer to rest her head onto mine.
"Listen, hun," she said, glancing over my shoulder. "It's true that biologically you can only have one real mom, but just because I didn't give birth to you doesn't make me any less of one." She reached out and stilled my antsy fingers as she moved the paper a little closer to me.
"Okay," I said, my throat suddenly feeling tight.
With a small sigh, I leaned over my tree and wrote 'Kristina Sophia Holland', my mother's full name, in small letters below the box with Charley, my father's name, then sighed, suddenly feeling exhausted.
She leaned toward me, staring at my stilled movements. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah. I guess," I said while staring at the other blank boxes. "I know she has brothers, but I...don't know their names, but I do know their parents'. You know, my other grandparents." I filled in the right blanks with both their names before putting my own name in the box labeled 'ME', then peered over at Mom who smiled wanly.
"I've never met any of them or anything." My eyes fell to the floor. "She doesn't have a lot of family anymore."
I stiffened as my mother hugged me. She didn't say anything, just squeezed me harder.
I reached my arms up and hugged her back, finding it to be exactly what I needed.
A minute later, mom was getting started on putting away dinner to start cleaning up the kitchen, leaving me alone at the table.
I added a few more names that I could recall to the family tree. Then, after a moment's pause, I smiled to myself. My eyes roved over the finished product, looking for any mistakes or omissions.
During the night, I tried as hard as I could, but I couldn't fall asleep. I had a weird feeling in my stomach. I rolled over on my side and pulled my blankets up to my chin. When that didn't help, I flipped to my other side. Pushing the blankets down to my chest, I shut my eyes before re-opening them. Maybe some water would help.
I slid out of bed, placed on my furry slippers that mom got me over the holiday break, and padded into the hall. It was dark except for the sliver of light under Mom's bedroom door. For a moment, I stared at the light, but then remembered my mission and headed for the staircase.
I held onto the railing as I walked downstairs. A light was on in the kitchen, and it filtered out into the rest of the first floor. I wondered who was downstairs and awake at this hour, thinking that maybe my uncle decided to stay over for the night.
Standing in the entryway, I looked at the woman who was clad in her sleepwear, sitting at the kitchen table with a piece of paper and emptied mug before her.
Upon hearing my entrance, Mom glanced up and frowned before standing from the table.
"Sophie? Why are you out of bed?"
"I wanted some water. I couldn't sleep."
Mom looked me over and then pulled out one of the chairs. As I climbed up to the table, Mom moved to get a cup, which she filled with ice and water. Returning, she handed me the chilled glass and sat back in her seat.
"Why couldn't you sleep?" Mom asked before I had a chance to ask her why she was looking at my family tree.
"I had a bad dream?"
"Soph-"
"I couldn't fall asleep. My stomach feels funny."
"Does it hurt?"
I shook my head and took a sip of my water.
"How come you're down here?" I asked after swallowing. After witnessing the light in her room, I figured that she might've been working late again.
"I was looking at your family tree," Mom sighed before forcing a smile when she caught my stare.
"Are you mad at me? I didn't hurt your feelings, did I?"
"No, of course not," she softly breathed, pushing the paper aside. She then focused her attention on me, "It's okay to miss them, Soph. You don't have to fear that. I never want you to."
Up until now, I never really knew how much feelings I've had buried away from my parents being gone and all. Even when I was forced to live in the orphanage and my life now... so much has happened to me over the past years, and I never realized how much I've grown along with it.
"I know," I said more to myself than aloud. "I miss them a lot..."
Mom smiled and pulled me into her arms. Despite how upset I felt, I smiled a little, and hid my face in the woman's neck. "I love you, mom."
"I love you, too. Nothing's going to change that, especially not some history project."
I giggled as she pulled back to softly kiss my forehead.
"Come on. It's getting way too late and you need your sleep. We both do."
Stepping down, mom took my cup away, and held onto my hand. The light of the kitchen faded as we headed upstairs.
"Mom!" I barreled through the crowded hallway of students and parents, colliding with my mom's stomach.
The woman laughed and wrapped her arms around me. "Hi, hun."
"Hello, Miss Morgan."
"Alicia?" said mom, looking in all directions.
"I'm right here," Alicia said, laughing.
"I didn't see you."
"You're not loud enough," Emma told her, walking forward. "That's the first."
Alicia threw her a mean look. "Well, I didn't want to interrupt."
"Mom, come on," I pulled her forward. "I want to show you something."
"Mr. Newton had us create family trees and hung them up," Alicia informed her as she and Emma followed close by.
"Is that so?" Mom laughed, holding my hand as I continued dragging her down the hall to Mr. Newton's classroom. Emma and Alicia's family were already there, waiting for their returns.
"Hey, Morgan," smiled Mrs. Clarke when we approached.
"Robin, how have you been?" said mom, retuning the smile. "I haven't seen you in three weeks."
"Good," she said, holding the young boy's hand. "John and I have been away. I missed Jon and Emma."
"Of course you did," said Emma. "I'd miss me, too."
Mr. Clarke shook his head and put an arm around her, pulling her to his side.
"How was your trip?"
"Not bad," Mr. Clarke stared at his wife. "Robin spent almost every day in London at the museums. It got dull after a while."
"John just doesn't appreciate culture," said Mrs. Clarke, eliciting a few giggles among the group.
"Couldn't agree with you more there," Mr. Clarke confirmed.
After their talk, I led mom to the back of the room where a few of my peers were crowding, pointing out their family trees, and various projects to their parents.
Brianna and both her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Williams was there and waved to me and Mom.
"Look, there's mine," I said and pointed to a tree near the top. A dark, sideways 'X' marred my first print, as the added letters displayed two names on the 'MOTHER' line.
"Sophie," Mom gasped. "Mr. Newton took your tree like that?"
I happily nodded before explaining myself. "I didn't want to have to choose because you're both my moms. Biological or not."
Mom smiled, staring at the paper as I walked over to her side.
"Can we go home now?"
"Sure," she grabbed my hand and gave it a gentle squeeze as I smiled, relieved that I was able to make everyone happy, including myself.
We said goodbye to all our friends and walked out of the school together.