2. Ruthie knows that families are built on more than biology, but she's pretty sure the foundation should never be made from lies.
In school, my old school, Eleanor Roosevelt, we learned about genetics. That German monk guy Mendel and his plants. Dominant and recessive and how most parts of us are due to lots of different genes working together. Not eye colour, though; eye colour is just one pair. I'd never thought about my parents' eye colour before. I was curious when I got home, so I checked mom right away; hers were blue. Blue is recessive, so that meant that for me to have brown eyes, dad had to have brown eyes too, to cover up the blue gene from mom.
Dad came home late that night. I was already in bed before he got home, but I'd left my lamp on so that I would have enough light to see by when he came in. As soon as I heard the door to my room open, I pretended to be asleep. When he leaned over to kiss me goodnight I opened my eyes just wide enough to see his– blue as the sky and the sea.
I have these weird blurry memories. They almost feel like dreams, like I've just woken up and they're slipping away from me. I remember heat and darkness and wisps of a language that sounds familiar but I can't understand the words. Sometimes I have dreams that feel like these memories, but sharper and clearer; I'm in some kind of van or something. It's really bumpy and hot and there are too many people crammed in there with me. It smells funny, kind of bad like a stable or the elephant house at the zoo. Someone is holding me tight and whispering to me in the familiar lilty words. I think it might be a prayer. Then the bumping stops and there is bright bright light and someone shouting in the language that I know but don't know. I see a flash of blue sky and sun-scorched sands and a prickly cactus standing crooked against the wind. Then I wake up.
We start learning foreign languages this year. I wanted to take Spanish; a lot of California's population speaks it, so it made the most sense. I told mom and dad, and mom almost dropped the plate she was washing and she and dad shared 'a look.' I'm taking French. In my Civics class we have to do projects on important issues for the presidential campaign. I got assigned immigration and when I told dad, he looked like he was about to have a stroke. The next class period my teacher, Ms. Corwin, said she needed someone to research tax cuts and could I please do that instead? There are no pictures of my mother pregnant with me.
I don't know what all this means, but this much I do know: my parents both have blue eyes, two of Mendel's white-flowered plants never made a purple-flowered one, and sometimes I dream of the desert.
