The Thickness of Water

Have you ever accidentally happened upon the discovery of something so heart-wrenching and impossible to accept as the truth, that you wish you could travel back in time a few moments to before you were aware of it?

You wish you would have not read that particular letter or not looked in the secret drawer of your husband’s desk that he forgot to lock one day before he left for work.

You wish that the passing time of life was like an hourglass, and you could flip it back over and let the grains of sand—your memories, slip backwards down the tincture and out of your mind?

That is exactly how I feel in this moment. As I stand frosted with disbelief. My ears ringing in the intense silence and my heart pounding in my chest so hard I fear it might break free from my rib cage.

I had come up to the attic to look for a box of Christmas ornaments. My mom has been away on a business trip and she is flying back in tonight. I thought it might be a lovely surprise to have the tree decorated for her return.

But instead of a kind surprise for mother, I discovered an appalling uncovering that shed a harrowing light on the years of twisted lies I’ve been living as my life.

While searching around the attic, I had happened upon a parcel. It was the shape of a large Manila envelope and had been wrapped in thick brown paper and tied over multiple times with twine.

Something deep inside me reached out a hand and told me that this was a finding that I needed to inspect further. It drew me to this package, until I was unable to contain my curiosity any longer and I began opening it up.

I almost wish I hadn’t. If I had never found out this information, I would have lived a happy life in ignorant bliss. I wouldn’t have to deal with this and I wouldn’t have to feel the pain of knowing. Because everything aside, I’ve had a wonderful life.

You should know, I have an amazing mother. She is my very best friend, my closest confidant and my number one fan. She has always made sure I was happy, healthy and well fed. We have a wonderful time together, always laughing and sharing everything. She is the one I go to with any problem I ever have. Even at the unusual age of sixteen, I intrust her with everything.

But now I’ve just found out, that the woman I have been telling you about is not my mother.

Through the fog I felt once the package’s contents were revealed, glaring down at the items in front of me with mist filled eyes, it wasn’t hard for me to figure out what they meant as a whole.

Before me in a messy stack lay cut off pieces of some of my baby photos that sit in dust covered frames downstairs, starring faces of people I’ve never seen before. Or at least not that I can remember.

There is a family photo that I can’t stop staring at, in it sit two young boys, a father and a mother. All smiling up at me, completely unassuming. The jarring part of the photo is that the mother is holding me.

Alright, so I know what you’re thinking. You just found out you were adopted. You will recover from the shock with time.

Wrong.

Underneath the photos in the pile there are around 5 old checks, all written out to ‘Shiela Andrews’. My mother’s first name, but not her last. The memo on them all says ‘house cleaning’.

And last but not least, there is a newspaper clipping. One with a photo of me, around age three, that I’ve never seen before.

MISSING PERSONS

Everly Caddel

Age: 3 years, 4 months

I thought my name was Nova Hart. I thought I had a perfect life. But now, in a split second, it’s all caught fire right before my eyes and everything I thought I knew is sitting in a pile of dust and soot at my feet.

“Shiela abducted me.” I whisper out loud, and suddenly it all becomes real. It feels like the ground turns to quick sand beneath my feet and I struggle to keep my body upright.

She abducted me and she will be home in less than two hours. My brain begins weaving in and out of thoughts and ideas like a car moving dangerously through traffic.

If I hadn’t found this package, I would have decorated the tree without contempt. I would have welcomed her home with a loving hug and we would have cooked dinner together.

“So what’s different now?” My heart asks me. “She is still the woman who raised you and gave you a wonderful life. She is still all that you know.”

In a strange spur of the moment type of acceptance, I return the items to the package. I wrap them back up in the weathered brown paper and tie the twine into a bow. I put the parcel under my arm, decide to wait and talk to my mother before doing anything rash and then I grab the box of Christmas ornaments.

As I make my way down the attic stairs, I mull over what I’m doing.

I don’t know what it is, the fear of change or the realization that Shiela would go to jail for the rest of her life if I confess.

But I think the honest truth is, I don’t want to lose her. We have spent too many years together and the family smiling up from those photos are strangers to me, related or not. I am attached to Shiela in the same way that I’d be to a real mother who had been so loving and kind my whole life, even now that I know she has done something so horribly wrong.

When the front door opens an hour or so later, Shiela arrives happily, shouting out to let me know she is home. But when she walks into the kitchen to see me standing by the package on the counter, her purse falls to the ground, it’s contents scattering across the kitchen tiles.

“Listen Nova,” she says hurriedly, walking towards me slowly as if I would suddenly cower away in fear. “They...you weren’t safe there. I didn’t know what else to do. Believe me, you were not safe.”

I cross my arms over my chest, giving her a rather wary look.

“I couldn’t just leave you there, please believe me.” She begged, her eyes brimming with tears.

I’m not sure if I fully did at first, but she was my mother. She had done nothing but protect me from harm my entire life. I wanted the truth to make me okay with staying here with her.

So I closed the gap between us and wrapped my shaking arms around her.

“It’s okay, Mom. I believe you.”

It is completely astonishing to me, how thick water can get, just because I had believed all my life that it was blood.